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PARISIAN   LIFE 

VOLUME     X 


LIMITED    TO   ONE    THOUSAND   COMPLETE   COPIES 


NO. 


713 


TULLIA   AND  M.  THUILLIER 


"For  heaven's  sake,  tell  me"  said  Thuillier  to 
Tullia,  the  dancer,  who  happened  to  be  calling  at 
Madame  Colleville's,  "  why  women  don't  get  attached 
to  me  f  I'm  not  an  Apollo  Belvedere,  but  I'm  no 
Vulcan,  either;  I'm  passably  good-looking,  I'm 
bright  and  faithful — " 

"Do  you  want  the  truth  ?  "  said  Tidlia. 

"  Yes,"  said  Beau  Thuillier. 

"Very  good ;  although  we  can  sometimes  love  a 
stupid  man,  we  never  love  a  fool" 

That  thrust  was  the  end  of  Thuillier. 


THE   NOVELS 


OF 


HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


NOW    FOR   THE    FIRST   TIME 
COMPLETELY    TRANSLATED    INTO    ENGLISH 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

BY  GEORGE  BURNHAM  IVES 


WITH    TEN    ETCHINGS    BY    CHARLES-THEODORE    DEBLOIS, 
CLAUDE  FAIVRE  AND  R.   DE  LOS  RIOS,  AFTER  PAINT- 
INGS   BY   ALCIDE-THEOPHILE   ROBAUDI 


VOLUME  I 


PRINTED  ONLY  FOR  SUBSCRIBERS  BY 

GEORGE   BARRIE   &   SON,   PHILADELPHIA 


COPYRIGHTED,   1896,   BY  G.   B.   A   SON 


;;.  :•.;.:      -   •    :      .   •  •. 


PQ 


V.I 


- 

THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 


05 

o 


189965 


TO  CONSTANCE-YICTOIRE 


In  the  following  pages,  Madame,  will  be  found 
one  of  those  stories  which  come  to  an  author's  mind, 
he  knows  not  whence,  and  take  it  captive  before  he 
has  time  to  consider  what  sort  of  a  welcome  it  will 
receive  from  the  public,  the  all-powerful  judge  of 
the  moment  Feeling  almost  sure  of  your  indul- 
gence for  my  infatuation,  I  dedicate  this  book  to 
you:  is  it  not  fitting  that  it  should  belong  to  you  as 
the  tithe  in  the  old  days  belonged  to  the  Church, 
in  memory  of  God,  by  whom  everything  is  made  to 
bloom  and  to  ripen,  in  the  fields  and  in  the  intellect? 

A  few  bits  of  clay,  left  by  Moliere  at  the  foot  of 
his  colossal  statue  of  Tartuffe,  are  here  worked  over 
by  a  hand  more  audacious  than  clever;  but,  how- 
ever far  below  the  greatest  of  writers  of  comedy  I 
am  and  must  remain,  I  shall  be  content  to  have 
turned  these  crumbs  picked  up  in  the  foreground  of 
his  play  to  some  account,  by  exhibiting  the  modern 
hypocrite  at  work.  The  thing  that  most  encouraged 
me  in  this  difficult  undertaking  was  that  I  found  it 
to  be  entirely  distinct  from  any  religious  question 
which  must  be  put  out  of  sight  of  one  so  devout  as 
yourself,  and  because  of  that  which  a  great  writer 
has  called  INDIFFERENCE  IN  MATTERS  OF  RELIGION. 
(3) 


4  DEDICATION 

May  the  double  signification  of  your  names  be 
prophetic  of  the  book's  fortune!  Deign  to  see  in 
these  few  lines  the  expression  of  his  most  respectful 
gratitude  who  ventures  to  subscribe  himself  your 
most  devoted  servant, 

DE  BALZAC. 


PART  FIRST 


(5) 


PART  FIRST 


The  Turnstile  Saint- Jean,  that  typical  detail  of 
Old  Paris,  the  description  of  which  seemed  so  tedious 
in  its  day  at  the  beginning  of  the  study  entitled  A 
Double  Family— (See  SCENES  OF  PRIVATE  LIFE)— 
has  now  no  other  existence  than  that  typographical 
one.  The  construction  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  as  it  is 
to-day  swept  a  whole  quarter  clean. 

In  1830  passers-by  might  still  see  the  turnstile 
painted  upon  the  signboard  of  a  dealer  in  wines, 
but  that  building,  its  last  refuge,  has  since  been 
torn  down.  Alas!  old  Paris  is  disappearing  with 
frightful  rapidity.  Here  and  there  we  shall  find  in 
this  work  a  typical  dwelling  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
like  that  described  at  the  beginning  of  The  Cat  and 
Racket,  of  which  one  or  two  specimens  are  still  in 
existence;  or  the  house  occupied  by  Judge  Popinot 
on  Rue  du  Fouarre,  a  specimen  of  the  abodes  of  the 
bourgeoisie  in  the  old  days.  Here  are  the  remains 
of  Fulbert's  mansion;  there  the  whole  basin  of  the 
Seine  under  Charles  IX.  Why  should  not  the  his- 
torian of  French  society,  like  another  Old  Mortality, 

(7) 


8  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

rescue  these  interesting  relics  of  the  past,  as  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  old  man  restored  the  tombs  of  the 
Covenanters?  Certain  it  is  that  for  ten  years  past 
the  shrieks  of  literature  have  not  been  thrown 
away;  art  is  beginning  to  disguise  with  its  flowers 
the  mean  facades  of  what  are  known  at  Paris  as 
houses  of  produce,  wittily  compared  by  one  of  our 
poets  to  commodes. 

Let  us  here  remark  that  the  creation  of  the  munic- 
ipal commission  del  ornamento  at  Milan,  which  has 
supervision  of  the  architecture  of  the  street  fronts  of 
all  buildings,  and  to  whom  all  persons  proposing  to 
build  are  required  to  submit  their  plans,  dates  from 
the  twelfth  century.  And  who  has  not  noticed,  in 
that  charming  capital,  the  results  of  the  patriotic 
regard  of  nobles  and  commoners  for  their  city,  as  he 
has  admired  the  character  and  originality  of  the 
buildings? — Hideous,  unbridled  speculation,  which, 
from  year  to  year,  cuts  down  the  height  of  floors, 
lays  out  a  whole  suite  of  rooms  in  the  space  once 
occupied  by  a  dismantled  salon,  and  wages  war  to 
the  knife  upon  gardens,  will  inevitably  exert  an 
influence  upon  Parisian  morals.  People  wiJl  soon 
be  compelled  to  live  without  rather  than  within. 
Where  is  the  sanctity  of  private  life,  the  freedom  of 
one's  own  fireside,  to  be  found  to-day  ?  It  begins 
with  an  income  of  fifty  thousand  francs.  Still,  a 
few  millionaires  do  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  a  little 
mansion,  separated  from  the  street  by  a  court-yard, 
and  sheltered  from  public  curiosity  by  the  thick  foli- 
age of  a  garden. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  9 

By  undertaking  to  equalize  fortunes,  that  part  of 
the  Code  which  deals  with  the  question  of  inheri- 
tances has  produced  those  monsters  in  unhewn  stone 
which  accommodate  thirty  families  and  yield  a  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  a  year.  So  it  will  be  that, 
fifty  years  hence,  we  shall  be  able  to  count  upon  our 
fingers  the  houses  like  that  which  was  occupied,  at 
the  time  this  narrative  begins,  by  the  Thuillier 
family;  a  really  interesting  house,  which  is  entitled 
to  the  honor  of  a  particular  description,  were  it  only 
to  compare  the  bourgeoisie  of  a  former  time  with  the 
bourgeoisie  of  to-day. 

Moreover,  the  situation  and  appearance  of  the 
house,  the  frame  of  the  ensuing  picture  of  manners, 
have  a  savor  of  the  lesser  bourgeoisie,  which  may 
attract  or  repel,  according  to  the  tastes  and  inclina- 
tions of  each  individual  reader. 

In  the  first  place  the  Thuillier  mansion  belonged 
neither  to  Monsieur  nor  to  Madame,  but  to  Mademoi- 
selle Thuillier,  Monsieur  Thuillier's  elder  sister. 

This  house,  which  had  been  purchased  during  the 
six  months  immediately  following  the  Revolution  of 
1830  by  Mademoiselle  Marie- Jeanne-Brigitte  Thuil- 
lier, a  damsel  of  full  age,  was  situated  near  the 
middle  of  RueSaint-Dominique-d'Enfer,  at  the  right 
as  one  turned  into  the  street  from  Rue  d'Enfer,  so 
that  the  building  occupied  by  Monsieur  Thuillier 
faced  the  south. 

The  progressive  movement  of  the  people  of  Paris 
toward  the  high  land  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Seine, 
and  the  consequent  desertion  of  the  left  bank,  had 


10  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

been  for  a  long  time  exerting  a  baneful  influence 
upon  the  sale  of  property  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  so- 
called,  when  divers  reasons,  which  will  be  explained 
in  connection  with  the  character  and  habits  of  Mon- 
sieur Thuillier,  led  his  sister  to  decide  upon  the  pur- 
chase of  a  piece  of  real  estate ;  she  secured  the 
property  in  question  at  the  upset  price  of  forty-six 
thousand  francs ;  the  appurtenances  amounted  to  six 
thousand  more,  making  a  total  of  fifty-two  thousand 
francs.  A  description  of  the  property,  in  the  style 
of  an  advertisement,  and  the  results  obtained  by 
Monsieur  Thuillier's  labors  will  make  clear  the 
means  by  which  so  many  fortunes  were  made  in 
July,  1830,  while  so  many  other  fortunes  were  ship- 
wrecked. 

The  facade  of  the  house  on  the  street  was  of  rough 
stone  coated  with  plaster,  marred  by  lapse  of  time, 
and  marked  with  the  mason's  trowel  to  imitate 
blocks  of  cut  stone.  This  style  of  house-front  is  so 
common  in  Paris  and  so  ugly  that  the  city  ought  to 
offer  gratuities  to  all  land-owners  who  build  of  hewn 
stone  and  have  their  facades  carved.  This  grisly 
structure,  pierced  by  seven  windows,  was  three 
stories  in  height,  and  ended  in  tile-covered  attics. 
The  heavy,  solidly-built  porte-cochere  was  of  a  form 
and  style  which  indicated  that  the  building  on  the 
street  was  erected  during  the  Empire,  with  the 
object  of  utilizing  part  of  the  court-yard  of  an  enor- 
mous, ancient  mansion  of  the  time  when  the  Quar- 
tier  d'Enfer  was  still  in  favor. 

On  one  side  was  the  porter's  lodge,  on  the  other 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  II 

the  staircase  of  the  building  with  the  stone  front. 
Two  other  buildings,  placed  against  the  adjoining 
houses  on  each  side,  had  formerly  been  used  as 
carriage-houses,  stables,  kitchens  and  offices  in  con- 
nection with  the  house  in  the  rear;  but,  since  1830, 
they  had  been  converted  into  shops. 

That  on  the  right  was  let  to  a  wholesale  paper- 
dealer,  one  Monsieur  Metivier  nephew ;  that  on  the 
left  to  a  bookseller  named  Barbel  The  premises  of 
each  tenant  extended  above  their  shops,  and  the 
bookseller  lived  on  the  first,  the  paper-dealer  on  the 
second  floor  of  the  house,  facing  the  street  Metivier 
nephew,  who  was  rather  a  broker  in  paper  than  a 
dealer,  and  Barbet,  who  was  much  more  of  a  bill- 
discounter  than  a  bookseller,  both  had  abundance  of 
room  in  which  to  store;  the  former,  the  piles  of 
paper  purchased  from  needy  manufacturers;  the 
other,  editions  of  works  given  in  pledge  for  his  loans. 

The  shark  of  the  book-shop  and  this  pike  of  the 
paper-mill  lived  on  the  best  of  terms,  and  their  busi- 
ness operations,  lacking  the  animation  attendant 
upon  retail  trade,  brought  but  few  carriages  into  the 
court-yard,  which  was  commonly  so  peaceful  that  the 
concierge  was  constantly  compelled  to  pull  up 
weeds  from  between  the  stones  of  the  pavement 
Messieurs  Barbet  and  Metivier,  who  were  hardly 
ready  to  be  laid  upon  the  shelf,  paid  a  visit  to  their 
landlord  now  and  then,  and  their  promptness  in  pay- 
ing their  rent  classed  them  among  desirable  tenants ; 
they  passed  for  very  honest  folk  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Thuillier  circle. 


12  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

The  third  floor  front  was  divided  into  two 
suites ;  one  was  occupied  by  Monsieur  Dutocq,  clerk 
to  the  justice  of  the  peace,  a  retired  government 
employe,  and  a  frequenter  of  the  salon  Thuillier; 
the  other  by  the  hero  of  this  Scene ;  for  the  moment 
we  must  be  content  to  fix  the  amount  of  his  rent, 
seven  hundred  francs,  and  the  position  he  had  taken 
up  in  the  heart  of  the  citadel  three  years  before  the 
moment  when  the  curtain  rises  upon  this  domes- 
tic drama. 

The  clerk,  a  bachelor  of  fifty,  occupied  the  larger 
of  the  two  suites  on  the  third  floor ;  he  had  a  cook 
and  paid  a  thousand  francs  rent  Two  years  after 
her  purchase  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  was  in  receipt 
of  seventy-two  hundred  francs  a  year  from  a  house, 
of  which  the  blinds  were  always  closed  under  the 
former  proprietor,  because,  although  he  had  remod- 
eled it  within,  and  supplied  it  plentifully  with  mir- 
rors, he  was  not  able  to  sell  or  let  it;  and  the 
Thuilliers,  who  lived  in  handsome  quarters,  as  we 
shall  see,  enjoyed  one  of  the  finest  gardens  in  the 
neighborhood,  the  trees  of  which  overhung  the  quiet 
little  Rue  Neuve-Sainte-Catherine. 

Located  between  court-yard  and  garden,  the  house 
they  occupied  seemed  to  have  been  built  to  gratify 
the  whim  of  some  newly-rich  tradesman,  under 
Louis  XIV.,  that  of  a  president  of  the  Parliament,  or 
the  abode  of  some  peaceful  scholar.  In  its  regular, 
even  courses  of  handsome  hewn  stone  there  was  a 
sort  of  Louis  Fourteenthish — pardon  the  barbarism — 
grandeur;  the  red  brick  window  trimmings  recalled 


THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS  13 

the  stables  at  Versailles,  the  arched  windows  were 
adorned  with  grotesque  figures  at  the  key  of  the  arch 
and  under  the  sill.  The  door,  which  was  of  glass  in 
small  panes  in  the  upper  part  and  solid  below,  and 
through  which  one  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  garden, 
was  in  the  straightforward,  modest  style  often  em- 
ployed in  the  porter's  lodges  of  the  royal  chateaux. 

There  were  two  floors  above  the  ground  floor, 
with  five  windows  in  each,  the  whole  covered  by  a 
square  roof,  ending  in  a  weathercock,  and  pierced 
by  four  large  chimneys  and  skylights.  It  may  be 
that  this  edifice  was  the  last  fragment  of  some  fine 
mansion ;  but  an  examination  of  the  old  plans  of 
Paris  reveals  nothing  to  confirm  that  conjecture; 
and  furthermore,  Mademoiselle  Thuillier's  title- 
deeds  prove  the  owner,  in  Louis  the  Fourteenth's 
time,  to  have  been  Petitot,  the  famous  painter  on 
enamel,  who  acquired  the  property  from  President 
Lecamus.  It  is  probable  that  the  president  lived 
there  while  his  famous  hotel  on  Rue  de  Thorigny 
was  in  process  of  construction. 

Thus  we  see  that  art  and  the  gown  have  alike 
passed  that  way.  And  with  what  liberal  apprecia- 
tion of  one's  needs  and  enjoyment  was  the  interior 
of  the  house  arranged !  At  the  right,  as  you  entered 
a  square  hall,  forming  a  sort  of  closed  vestibule, 
was  a  stone  staircase  with  two  windows  looking  on 
the  garden;  under  the  staircase  was  the  door  leading 
to  the  cellar.  From  the  vestibule  a  door  opened  into 
the  dining-room,  which  was  lighted  from  the  court- 
yard. The  dining-room  was  connected  on  the  other 


14  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

side  with  a  kitchen  which  was  in  the  rear  of  Bar- 
bet's  premises.  Behind  the  staircase,  on  the  garden 
side,  was  a  magnificent  long  office  with  two  win- 
dows. The  first  and  second  floors  formed  two  com- 
plete suites,  and  the  location  of  the  servants'  quarters 
under  the  roof  was  indicated  by  the  skylights.  A 
magnificent  stove  adorned  this  square  vestibule, 
which  was  lighted  by  two  glass  doors  facing  each 
other.  The  floor  was  of  black  and  white  marble 
tiles,  and  the  ceiling  was  supported  by  jutting 
beams  formerly  painted  and  gilded,  but  which,  under 
the  Empire  no  doubt,  had  received  a  coat  of  plain 
white  paint  throughout  Opposite  the  stove  was  a 
fountain  in  red  marble  with  a  marble  basin.  The 
three  doors  of  the  office,  the  salon  and  the  dining- 
room,  were  made  with  oval  panels,  the  paint  upon 
which  awaited  a  retouching  which  was  more  than 
necessary.  The  finish  of  the  rooms  was  rather 
heavy,  but  the  decorations  were  not  without  merit. 
The  salon,  which  was  finished  entirely  in  wood, 
reminded  one  of  the  great  century  as  well  by  its 
chimney-piece,  in  Languedoc  marble,  as  by  its 
ceiling  ornamented  at  the  corners,  and  the  shape  of 
the  windows,  which  still  retained  the  small  old-fash- 
ioned panes.  The  dining-room,  which  communi- 
cated with  the  salon  by  folding-doors,  had  a  stone 
floor;  the  wainscoting  was  of  oak,  unpainted,  and 
an  atrocious  modern  wall-paper  replaced  the  tapestry 
of  the  old  days.  The  ceiling  was  in  paneled  chest- 
nut, which  had  been  left  untouched.  The  cabinet, 
modernized  by  Thuillier,  added  one  more  to  the 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  15 

incongruities  of  the  place.  The  gold  and  white 
mouldings  of  the  salon  had  seen  such  hard  service 
that  one  could  see  nothing  but  red  lines  where  the 
gold  used  to  be,  and  the  white  was  streaked  with 
yellow — and  scaling  off  in  spots.  The  phrase  Otium 
cum  dignitale  could  never  have  had  a  more  eloquent 
illustration  in  the  eyes  of  a  poet  than  this  once 
splendid  dwelling  afforded.  The  ironwork  of  the 
stair-rail  was  of  a  style  befitting  the  abode  of  the 
magistrate  and  the  artist;  but  to  find  their  traces 
to-day  in  the  remains  of  that  majestic  antiquity  the 
eyes  of  an  artist  are  requisite. 

The  Thuilliers  and  their  predecessors  many  a 
time  cast  dishonor  upon  this  gem  among  upper 
middle-class  habitations  by  the  introduction  of  the 
habits  and  devices  of  the  petty  bourgeoisie.  Do 
you  notice  the  black  walnut  chairs  upholstered  in 
horsehair ;  a  mahogany  table  with  an  oilcloth  cover ; 
mahogany  sideboards ;  a  second-hand  carpet  under 
the  table;  white  iron  lamps,  an  ugly  wall-paper 
with  a  red  border,  execrable  engravings  of  the 
gloomiest  subjects,  and  red-fringed  calico  curtains, 
in  the  dining-room  where  Petitot  and  his  friends 
feasted?  Do  you  realize  the  effect  produced  in  the 
salon  by  the  portraits  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  and 
Mademoiselle  Thuillier,  by  Pierre  Grassou,  the 
painter  affected  by  well-to-do  tradesmen;  card- 
tables  which  had  done  service  for  twenty  years, 
consoles  of  the  time  of  the  Empire,  a  tea-table  of 
which  the  legs  were  in  the  shape  of  a  bulky  lyre, 
and  furniture  of  prickly  mahogany  upholstered  in 


16  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

velvet  with  flowers  painted  on  a  chocolate  back- 
ground; upon  the  mantel-piece,  beside  the  clock 
representing  the  Bellona  of  the  Empire,  candelabra 
with  fluted  columns;  curtains  of  woolen  damask  and 
curtains  of  embroidered  muslin,  caught  back  by 
bands  of  stamped  copper?— On  the  floor  was  a 
second-hand  carpet  In  the  finely-proportioned 
oblong  vestibule  were  velvet-covered  benches ;  the 
decorated  walls  were  concealed  by  cupboards  of  vari- 
ous periods  brought  thither  from  all  the  apartments 
hitherto  occupied  by  the  Thuilliers.  The  fountain 
was  hidden  from  sight  by  boards,  upon  which  was 
a  smoky  lamp  that  dated  from  1815.  Lastly,  timid- 
ity, that  unattractive  goddess,  had  dictated  the  use, 
on  the  garden  side  as  well  as  on  the  side  of  the  court- 
yard, of  double  doors  sheathed  with  iron,  which 
were  opened  against  the  wall  by  day,  and  closed  at 
night 

It  is  a  simple  matter  to  explain  the  deplorable 
profanation  of  this  monument  of  private  life  in  the 
seventeenth  century  by  the  private  life  of  the  nine- 
teenth. In  the  early  days  of  the  Consulate,  we 
will  say,  a  master  mason  purchased  this  little  man- 
sion and  conceived  the  idea  of  turning  the  land  on 
the  street  to  some  use;  so  he  probably  demolished 
the  fine  porte-cochere,  flanked  by  little  pavilions 
which  put  the  finishing-touch  to  this  attractive  place 
of  sojourn — to  make  use  of  an  old-fashioned  expres- 
sion— and  the  inventive  genius  of  a  Parisian  land- 
holder left  its  brand  upon  the  brow  of  this  master- 
piece of  refined  taste,  as  the  newspaper  and  its 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  17 

presses,  the  factory  and  its  warehouses,  commerce 
and  its  counting-houses  are  replacing  the  aristocracy, 
the  old  bourgeoisie,  the  financiers  and  the  men  of 
the  gown  in  all  those  places  where  their  magnifi- 
cence was  formerly  displayed.  What  an  interesting 
study  is  that  of  the  title-deeds  of  property  in  Paris ! 
On  Rue  des  Batailles  a  hospital  performs  its  chari- 
table functions  in  the  house  of  Chevalier  Pierre 
Bayard  du  Terrail ;  the  Third  Estate  laid  out  a  street 
over  the  site  of  the  Hotel  Necker.  Old  Paris  is 
vanishing,  following  the  kings,  who  have  already 
vanished.  For  one  masterpiece  of  architecture  res- 
cued from  destruction  by  a  Polish  princess,*  how 
many  small  palaces  are  falling,  like  Petitot's  abode, 
into  the  hands  of  the  Thuilliers! 

The  causes  which  led  to  Mademoiselle  Thuillier's 
becoming  the  owner  of  this  property  were  these: 

At  the  fall  of  the  Villele  ministry,  Monsieur  Louis- 
Jer&me  Thuillier,  who  had  then  been  twenty-six 
years  in  the  employ  of  the  treasury,  became  deputy- 
chief  of  a  bureau ;  but  he  had  barely  assumed  the 
subordinate  authority  conferred  by  a  post  which  had 
formerly  been  beyond  his  wildest  hopes,  when  the 
events  of  July,  1830,  forced  him  to  retire.  He  very 
shrewdly  reckoned  that  his  retiring  pension  would 
be  promptly  and  honestly  adjusted  by  people  only 
too  glad  to  have  another  place  at  their  disposal,  and 
he  was  right,  for  his  pension  was  fixed  at  seventeen 
hundred  francs. 

When  the  prudent  deputy-chief  spoke  of  retiring 

*  The  Hotel  Lambert  on  lie  Saint  Louis,  occupied  by  Princess  Czartoriska. 

2 


18  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

from  the  government  employ,  his  sister,  who  was 
much  more  truly  his  helpmeet  than  was  his  wife, 
was  apprehensive  for  his  future. 

"What  is  going  to  become  of  Thuillier?"  was  a 
question  addressed  to  each  other  with  mutual  dismay 
by  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Thuillier,  at  that  time 
occupying  a  small  third  floor  apartment  on  Rue 
d'Argenteuil. 

"He  will  be  busy  for  some  time  getting  his  pen- 
sion arranged, "  said  Mademoiselle  Thuillier;  "but 
I'm  thinking  of  an  investment  of  my  little  savings 
that  will  give  him  something  to  do. — Yes,  it'll  be 
almost  like  being  in  the  government  to  have  some 
real  estate  to  look  after." 

"Oh!  dear  sister,  you  will  save  his  life!"  cried 
Madame  Thuillier. 

"Yes,  I  have  always  kept  in  mind  the  possibility 
of  such  a  crisis  in  Jerome's  life!"  replied  the  old 
maid,  patronizingly. 

Mademoiselle  Thuillier  had  too  often  heard  her 
brother  say:  "Such  and  such  a  one  is  dead!  he 
didn't  survive  his  retirement  two  years!"  she  had 
too  often  heard  Colleville,  Thuillier's  intimate 
friend  and  a  government  clerk  like  himself,  joking 
about  this  grand  climacteric  of  the  bureaucrats,  and 
saying:  "We  shall  come  to  it  in  time!" — not  to 
realize  the  danger  incurred  by  her  brother.  The 
transition  from  activity  to  retirement  is,  in  truth, 
the  critical  period  in  the  clerk's  life.  Those  clerks, 
who,  upon  being  retired,  have  not  the  good  fortune  to 
substitute  other  occupations  for  those  they  have  laid 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  19 

aside,  are  apt  to  change  in  strange  ways :  some  die ; 
many  fall  into  dissipation,  a  form  of  distraction  the 
emptiness  of  which  bears  some  resemblance  to  their 
work  in  the  government  offices;  others,  more  in- 
clined to  mischief,  dabble  in  stocks,  throw  away 
their  savings  and  are  overjoyed  to  be  admitted  to  a 
share  in  an  enterprise,  destined  to  succeed,  after  the 
first  crash  and  liquidation,  in  the  more  skilful  hands 
which  are  on  the  watch ;  the  ex-clerk  thereupon  rubs 
his  own  hands,  now  quite  empty,  say  ing  to  himself: 
"At  all  events,  I  foresaw  what  the  future  of  that 
thing  would  be!"— But  almost  all  of  them  struggle 
against  their  former  ways  of  life. 

"There  are  some,"  Colleville  would  say,  "who 
are  eaten  up  with  the  spleen  peculiar  to  government 
clerks;  they  die  from  going  round  and  round  in  the 
same  circle;  they  have,  not  the  ver  solitaire — tape- 
worm— but  the  carton  solitaire — solitary  document 
case — Little  Poiret  couldn't  see  a  white  case  with 
a  blue  edge  without  changing  color  at  the  well-loved 
sight;  he  always  changed  from  green  to  yellow." 

Mademoiselle  Thuillier  was  looked  upon  as  the 
good  genius  of  her  brother's  household;  she  lacked 
neither  force  nor  decision  of  character,  as  the  story  of 
her  life  will  prove.  This  superiority  to  her  sur- 
roundings made  it  possible  for  her  to  form  a  just 
estimate  of  her  brother,  although  she  worshiped  him. 
Having  looked  on  at  the  death  of  the  hopes  which 
depended  upon  her  idol  for  their  fulfilment,  she  had 
too  much  of  the  sentiment  of  maternity  to  deceive 
herself  as  to  the  deputy-chief's  value  in  society. 


20  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Thuillier  and  his  sister  were  children  of  the  chief 
concierge  at  the  Treasury  Department.  Thanks  to 
his  near-sightedness,  Jerome  had  escaped  the  innu- 
merable drafts  and  conscriptions.  The  father's 
ambition  was  to  have  his  son  enter  the  employ  of 
the  government  In  the  early  part  of  this  century 
there  were  too  many  places  filled  in  the  army  not  to 
leave  many  vacant  ones  in  the  government  offices, 
and  the  scarcity  of  clerks  in  the  lower  grades  made  it 
possible  for  honest  Pere  Thuillier  to  place  his  son 
upon  the  first  step  of  the  bureaucratic  hierarchy. 

The  concierge  died  in  1814,  leaving  Jerome  on  the 
point  of  becoming  deputy-chief,  but  bequeathing  him 
no  other  fortune  than  that  hope.  The  old  gentleman 
and  his  wife,  who  died  in  1810,  had  retired  from  their 
post  about  1806,  with  no  other  means  than  their 
retiring  pension,  having  devoted  their  spare  cash  to 
affording  Jerome  such  education  as  was  obtainable 
at  the  time,  and  to  supporting  him  and  his  sister. 

The  influence  of  the  Restoration  upon  the  bureau- 
cracy is  well  known.  The  suppression  of  forty-one 
departments  left  without  employment  a  multitude  of 
worthy  clerks  requesting  appointments  to  places 
inferior  to  those  they  had  formerly  held.  To  their 
well-earned  rights  were  added  the  claims  of  the 
proscribed  families  whom  the  Revolution  had 
ruined.  Between  these  two  currents  Jerome 
deemed  himself  very  fortunate  not  to  be  discharged 
altogether  on  some  frivolous  pretext  He  never 
ceased  to  tremble  until  the  day  when,  having  by 
good  luck  become  deputy-chief,  he  was  assured  of 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  21 

honorable  retirement  This  rapid  summary  will 
explain  Monsieur  Thuillier's  inconsiderable  ability 
and  acquirements.  He  had  learned  Latin,  mathe- 
matics, history  and  geography  as  one  learns  at 
boarding-school;  but  he  got  no  higher  than  the 
second  class,  his  father  having  chosen  to  avail  him- 
self of  an  opportunity  to  get  his  son  into  the 
department  by  boasting  of  his  superb  handwriting. 
Therefore,  although  young  Thuillier  wrote  the 
first  inscriptions  in  the  register  of  the  public  debt, 
neither  the  language  nor  the  philosophy  of  the 
scheme  was  his. 

Having  become  an  integral  part  of  the  ministerial 
machine,  he  cultivated  letters  but  little,  art  still  less ; 
he  became  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  routine 
work  of  his  place,  and  as  he  sometimes  had  occasion, 
under  the  Empire,  to  enter  the  sphere  occupied  by 
employes  of  a  higher  grade,  he  acquired  their 
superficial  manners,  which  concealed  the  concierge's 
son,  but  he  never  so  much  as  brushed  up  his  wits 
there.  His  ignorance  taught  him  to  keep  silent, 
and  his  silence  was  of  service  to  him.  Under  the 
imperial  regime  he  accustomed  himself  to  the 
passive  obedience  which  pleased  his  superiors ;  and 
to  that  quality  he  owed  his  promotion  to  be  deputy- 
chief  at  a  later  period.  His  strict  adherence  to 
routine  gave  him  the  name  of  a  man  of  great  ex- 
perience; his  manners  and  his  silence  concealed  his 
lack  of  information.  His  absolute  nothingness  was 
a  title  to  consideration  when  they  needed  a  man 
who  was  absolutely  nothing.  There  was  a  fear  of 


22  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

giving  offence  to  both  parties  in  the  Chamber,  each 
of  which  had  its  favorite  candidate,  and  the  minis- 
try extricated  itself  from  the  dilemma  by  carrying  out 
the  law  concerning  priority  of  service.  That  is  how 
Thuillier  became  deputy-chief.  Mademoiselle  Thuil- 
lier,  knowing  that  her  brother  abhorred  reading, 
and  was  unlikely  to  find  any  employment  to  replace 
the  bustle  of  the  government  offices,  shrewdly  deter- 
mined, therefore,  to  throw  upon  him  the  responsibil- 
ities of  a  landed  proprietor,  to  employ  him  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  a  garden,  in  the  infinitely  trivial  details 
of  middle-class  life,  and  in  neighborhood  intrigues. 

The  adjustment  of  the  details  of  the  purchase  and 
the  transplanting  of  the  Thuillier  establishment  from 
Rue  d'Argenteuil  to  Rue  Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, 
together  with  the  necessary  labor  of  finding  a  suit- 
able concierge  and  proper  tenants,  furnished  Thuil- 
lier with  occupation  in  1831  and  1832.  When  the 
ceremony  of  transplanting  was  concluded,  and 
Jerdme's  sister  saw  that  he  did  not  take  kindly  to 
the  operation,  she  found  other  ways  of  employing 
his  time,  which  will  be  described  in  due  course ;  but, 
as  her  reason  for  the  selection  was  based  upon 
Thuillier's  character,  it  may  not  be  inadvisable  to 
say  a  word  here  upon  that  subject 

Although  he  was  the  son  of  a  government  con- 
cierge, Thuillier  was  what  is  called  a  handsome  man ; 
rather  above  middle  height,  slender,  with  not 
unpleasant  features  while  he  wore  his  glasses,  but 
horrible  to  look  at,  as  is  frequently  the  case  with 
myopes,  as  soon  as  he  took  them  off;  for  the  habit 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  23 

of  looking  through  goggles  had  spread  a  sort  of  film 
over  his  eyes. 

From  eighteen  to  thirty  young  Thuillier  had  some 
success  with  the  fair  sex,  always  in  a  sphere  extend- 
ing from  the  class  of  petty  tradesmen  to  the  chiefs 
of  divisions  in  the  government  offices ;  but  everybody 
knows  that,  under  the  Empire,  the  constant  wars 
left  Parisian  society  somewhat  destitute  by  taking 
most  of  the  live  men  away  to  the  battle-field,  and 
it  may  be,  as  a  great  physician  has  said,  that  that 
fact  accounts  for  the  supineness  of  the  generation 
which  occupies  the  stage  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

Thuillier  being  compelled  to  resort  to  other  than 
intellectual  fascinations  to  draw  attention  to  himself, 
learned  to  waltz  and  to  perform  in  contradances  so 
well  that  he  was  quoted  as  an  authority;  he  was 
called  Beau  Thuillier.  He  played  billiards  to  per- 
fection ;  he  was  an  artist  in  cutting  figures  out  of 
paper;  and  his  friend  Colleville  had  tutored  him 
so  persistently  with  the  tuning-fork  that  he  could 
sing  the  fashionable  airs  of  the  day.  From  these 
trivial  accomplishments  resulted  that  appearance  of 
social  success  which  leads  young  men  astray  and 
gives  them  dazzling  dreams  of  the  future.  Made- 
moiselle Thuillier,  from  1806  to  1814,  believed  in  her 
brother  as  implicitly  as  Mademoiselle  d'Orleans  in 
Louis-Philippe;  she  was  proud  of  Jer6me,  and  in 
her  mind's  eye  she  saw  him  attaining  the  dignity 
of  a  director-generalship,  thanks  to  this  factitious 
vogue  which,  during  those  years,  opened  some 


24  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

salons  to  him  to  which  he  assuredly  would  never 
have  been  admitted  but  for  the  circumstances  which 
made  society  under  the  Empire  a  chaos. 

But  Beau  Thuillier's  triumphs  were  generally  of 
short  duration,  for  the  women  cared  as  little  about 
keeping  him  as  he  cared  about  joining  his  fortunes 
with  theirs  forever;  he  would  have  been  a  most  fit- 
ting subject  of  a  comedy  entitled  The  Don  Juan 
Against  His  Will.  The  profession  of  beau  was  so 
wearisome  to  Thuillier  that  he  aged  visibly;  his 
face,  which  was  as  covered  with  wrinkles  as  that 
of  an  old  coquette,  made  him  a  good  twelve  years 
older  than  the  certificate  of  his  birth.  Of  his  period 
of  social  success  he  retained  the  habit  of  looking  in 
the  mirror,  of  grasping  his  waist  in  order  to  make 
it  smaller,  and  of  assuming  the  attitudes  of  a  dancer, 
all  of  which  tended  to  prolong  beyond  his  enjoy- 
ment of  its  benefits  his  lease  of  the  nickname  Beau 
Thuillier! 

What  was  true  in  1806  was  an  absurdity  in  1826. 
He  preserved  some  relics  of  the  costume  affected 
by  the  beaus  of  the  Empire,  which,  to  tell  the  truth, 
was  not  ill-suited  to  the  dignity  of  a  deputy-chief. 
He  retained  the  white  cravat  with  its  numerous  folds 
amid  which  the  chin  nestled,  its  two  ends  threaten- 
ing passers-by  on  either  side,  and  calling  their 
attention  to  a  jaunty  knot,  which  used  to  be  tied 
by  fair  hands.  While  following  the  fashions  at  a 
distance  he  adapted  them  to  his  own  figure;  he 
wore  his  hat  far  back  upon  his  head,  and  low  shoes 
and  fine  stockings  in  summer;  his  lengthened  frock 


BEAU  THUILLIER 


He  played  billiards  to  perfection  ;  he  was  an  artist 
in  cutting  figures  out  of  paper ;  and  Ids  friend 
Colleville  had  tortured  him  so  persistently  with  tJie 
tuning-fork  that  he  could  sing  the  fashionable  airs  of 
the  day. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  25 

coats  reminded  one  of  the  Ifoites  worn  under  the 
Empire;  he  had  not  yet  abandoned  ample  shirt- 
frills  and  white  waistcoats ;  he  was  always  playing 
with  the  switch  he  carried  in  1810,  and  he  walked 
with  a  slight  stoop.  No  one,  to  see  Thuillier  walk- 
ing on  the  boulevards,  would  have  taken  him  for  the 
son  of  a  man  who  provided  lunches  for  the  clerks  in 
the  Treasury  Department,  and  wore  the  livery  of 
Louis  XVI. ;  he  resembled  a  diplomatist  of  the 
Empire  or  a  sub-prefect.  Now,  not  only  did  Made- 
moiselle Thuillier  flatter  her  brother's  weakness  by 
urging  him  to  take  especial  pains  with  his  personal 
appearance, — it  being,  in  her  case,  a  sort  of  continu- 
ation of  her  hero-worship, — but  she  also  gave  him 
all  the  pleasures  of  family  life  by  transplanting 
beneath  their  roof  a  family  whose  previous  exist- 
ence had  been,  so  to  speak,  collateral  to  theirs. 

This  was  the  family  of  Monsieur  Colleville, 
Thuillier's  bosom  friend;  but  before  depicting 
Pylades,  it  is  indispensable  to  complete  our  picture 
of  Orestes,  especially  as  we  have  yet  to  explain 
how  Thuillier,  Beau  Thuillier,  came  to  be  without 
a  family,  for  the  family  does  not  exist  except  where 
children  are;  and  here  we  must  disclose  one  of 
those  profound  mysteries  which  lie  buried  in  the 
arcana  of  family  life,  and  of  which  some  faint  indi- 
cations reach  the  surface  when  the  agony  of  a  false 
situation  becomes  too  keen.  We  must  now  advert 
to  the  lives  of  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Thuillier; 
hitherto  we  have  spoken  only  of  the  life,  the  quasi- 
public  life,  of  Jerome  Thuillier. 


Marie- Jeanne-Brigitte  Thuillier,  who  was  four 
years  older  than  her  brother,  was  utterly  sacrificed 
to  him ;  it  was  a  simpler  matter  to  provide  a  pro- 
fession for  the  one  than  a  dowry  for  the  other. 
Misfortune  is  to  certain  natures  a  beacon  that  lights 
them  through  the  dark  paths  of  the  lower  strata  of 
social  life.  Superior  to  her  brother,  both  in  energy 
and  intellect,  Brigitte  was  one  of  those  characters 
which,  under  the  hammer  of  persecution,  become 
concentrated,  compact,  capable  of  great  resistance, 
not  to  say  inflexible.  Being  jealous  of  her  indepen- 
dence, she  determined  to  cut  loose  from  life  at  the 
porter's  lodge  and  become  the  sole  arbiter  of  her  own 
destiny. 

At  the  age  of  fourteen  she  took  up  her  quarters  in 
an  attic  a  few  steps  from  the  Treasury,  then  located 
on  Rue  Vivienne,  not  far  from  Rue  de  la  Vrilliere, 
where  the  Bank  still  is.  She  devoted  herself  with 
great  courage  to  a  little-known  branch  of  industry, 
she  was  indebted  to  her  father's  patrons  for  the 
opportunity,  which  consisted  in  making  bags  for 
the  Bank,  for  the  Treasury,  and  also  for  the  great 
banking-houses.  In  the  third  year  she  had  two 
women  working  for  her.  By  investing  her  savings 
in  the  public  funds,  she  found  herself,  in  1814,  mis- 
tress of  an  income  of  thirty-six  hundred  francs, 
earned  in  fifteen  years.  She  spent  but  little  and 
(27) 


28  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

dined  at  her  father's  almost  every  day  while  he 
lived,  and,  moreover,  it  is  well  known  that  consols 
fell  to  between  forty  and  fifty  francs  during  the 
Empire's  dying  convulsions;  so  that  this  result, 
which  seems  exaggerated,  explains  itself. 

At  the  death  of  the  former  concierge,  Brigitte  and 
Jerome,  being  then  twenty-seven  and  twenty-three 
years  old  respectively,  joined  fortunes.  The  brother 
and  sister  were  devotedly  attached  to  each  other. 
If  Jer6me,  then  in  the  hey-day  of  his  social  success, 
happened  to  be  short  of  cash,  his  sister  in  her  stuff 
gown  and  with  fingers  raw  from  the  thread  she  used 
in  sewing  always  had  a  louis  or  two  to  give  him. 
In  Brigitte's  eyes  Jerome  was  the  handsomest  and 
most  fascinating  man  in  the  French  Empire.  To 
keep  house  for  her  darling  brother,  to  be  initiated 
into  the  secrets  of  Lindor  and  Don  Juan,  to  be  his 
slave,  his  poodle,  was  Brigitte's  dream;  she  immo- 
lated herself  almost  as  a  wife  or  mistress  might  have 
done  to  an  idol,  whose  selfishness  was  destined  to 
be  augmented  and  sacrificed  by  her.  She  sold  her 
business  to  her  forewoman  for  fifteen  thousand 
francs,  and  took  up  her  abode  with  the  Thuilliers  on 
Rue  d'Argenteuil,  assuming  the  role  of  mother,  pro- 
tectress and  maid-servant  of  that  darling  pet  of  the 
ladies.  With  the  prudence  to  be  expected  from  a 
damsel  who  owed  everything  to  her  own  discretion 
and  hard  work,  Brigitte  concealed  the  amount  of  her 
means  from  her  brother ;  she  feared,  no  doubt,  the 
extravagant  tendencies  of  a  squire  of  dames,  and  she 
contributed  but  six  hundred  francs  to  the  expenses 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  29 

of  the  household;  that,  however,  with  Jerdme's 
eighteen  hundred  enabled  them  to  make  both  ends 
meet 

From  the  very  beginning  of  their  partnership, 
Thuillier  listened  to  his  sister  as  to  an  oracle,  con- 
sulted her  concerning  the  most  trivial  matters  of 
business,  hid  none  of  his  secrets  from  her,  and  thus 
gave  her  a  taste  of  the  fruit  of  the  thirst  for  domi- 
neering, which  was  the  one  pardonable  flaw  in  her 
character.  The  sister,  then,  had  sacrificed  every- 
thing to  her  brother;  she  had  made  his  interests 
the  chief  care  of  her  heart,  she  lived  in  him.  Her 
ascendancy  over  him  was  confirmed,  strangely 
enough,  by  the  marriage  she  arranged  for  him  about 
1814. 

When  she  observed  the  rough  measures  of  com- 
pression in  the  government  offices  adopted  by  the 
new-comers  of  the  Restoration,  and  especially  when 
she  saw  how  the  bourgeoisie  were  being  crowded  to 
the  wall  by  the  re-establishment  of  the  old  social 
regime,  Brigitte  understood,  the  better  as  her 
brother  explained  it  to  her,  the  social  crisis  where- 
in their  mutual  hopes  were  extinguished.  Success 
was  no  longer  possible  for  Beau  Thuillier  among  the 
nobles  who  succeeded  the  parvenus  of  the  Empire! 

Thuillier  had  not  sufficient  strength  of  mind  to 
adopt  any  political  opinion,  and  he  felt,  as  did  his 
sister,  the  necessity  of  taking  advantage  of  what 
remained  of  his  youth  to  end  his  career  as  a  lady's 
man.  In  that  situation  of  affairs,  a  woman  as  jeal- 
ous as  Brigitte  would  and  should  seek  to  find  a  wife 


30  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

for  her  brother,  as  much  for  herself  as  for  him,  for 
she  alone  could  make  him  happy,  and  a  Madame 
Thuillier  was  simply  an  accessory  indispensable  for 
the  production  of  a  child  or  two.  If  Brigitte  had 
not  the  intellect  suited  to  her  strong  will,  she  had 
at  all  events  an  instinctive  consciousness  of  her 
power  of  domination;  she  had  no  education,  but 
simply  went  straight  ahead  with  the  obstinacy  of  a 
nature  accustomed  to  succeed.  She  had  a  genius  for 
housekeeping,  an  economical  mind,  good  judgment 
in  providing  for  the  table  and  an  intense  love  of 
work.  She  foresaw  therefore  that  she  would  never 
succeed  in  marrying  Jerome  in  a  higher  sphere  than 
their  own,  in  which  families  would  be  likely  to 
make  inquiries  as  to  his  home  life  and  might  be  dis- 
turbed to  find  a  mistress  already  installed;  she 
looked  about  in  the  lower  social  stratum  in  search  of 
people  to  be  dazzled,  and  she  found  a  suitable  match 
close  at  hand. 

The  oldest  of  the  clerks  at  the  Bank,  one  Lem- 
prun,  had  an  only  daughter  named  Celeste.  Made- 
moiselle Celeste  Lemprun  would  inherit  the 
fortune  of  her  mother,  who  was  the  only  daughter 
of  a  well-to-do  farmer.  This  fortune  consisted  of  a 
few  acres  of  land  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris  which  the 
old  gentleman  still  cultivated.  Then  there  was  the 
fortune  of  the  worthy  Lemprun  himself,  who  had 
entered  the  employ  of  the  Bank  at  the  time  of  its 
foundation  after  long  service  in  the  banking-houses 
of  Thelusson  and  Keller.  Lemprun,  who  was  at 
this  time  at  the  head  of  the  employes  of  the  Bank, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  31 

enjoyed  the  esteem  and  regard  of  the  government 
and  the  censors. 

So  it  happened  that  the  council  of  the  Bank, 
hearing  some  mention  of  Celeste's  marriage  with  a 
faithful  clerk  at  the  Treasury  Department,  voted  her 
a  gratuity  of  six  thousand  francs.  This  gratuity, 
added  to  twelve  thousand  francs  given  by  Pere 
Lemprun,  and  twelve  thousand  given  by  Monsieur 
Galard,  market  gardener  of  Auteuil,  carried  the 
marriage-portion  to  thirty  thousand  francs.  Old 
Galard  and  Monsieur  and  Madame  Lemprun  were 
delighted  with  the  match;  the  chief  clerk  knew 
Mademoiselle  Thuillier  to  be  one  of  the  most 
honest,  worthy  women  in  Paris.  Moreover,  Brigitte 
made  her  holding  in  the  funds  glisten  in  Lemprun's 
eyes  by  confiding  to  him  that  she  should  never 
marry,  and  neither  the  chief  clerk  nor  his  wife,  both 
of  whom  were  of  the  age  of  gold,  would  have  pre- 
sumed to  pass  judgment  upon  Brigitte.  They  were 
especially  impressed  by  the  splendor  of  Beau  Thuil- 
lier's  position,  and  the  wedding  took  place,  accord- 
ing to  the  timeworn  phrase,  to  the  satisfaction  of 
all  concerned. 

The  governor  and  secretary  of  the  Bank  acted  as 
witnesses  for  the  bride,  as  did  Monsieur  de  la  Bil- 
lardiere,  divisional  chief,  and  Monsieur  Rabourdin, 
chief  of  bureau,  for  Thuillier.  Six  days  after  the 
marriage,  Lemprun  was  the  victim  of  an  audacious 
theft,  which  was  mentioned  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
day,  but  was  speedily  forgotten  in  the  exciting 
events  of  1815.  The  perpetrators  of  the  crime 


32  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

having  eluded  pursuit,  Lemprun  insisted  upon  mak- 
ing up  the  difference,  and,  although  the  Bank  had 
charged  the  amount  to  profit  and  loss,  the  poor  old 
man  died  of  the  grief  caused  by  the  misadventure. 
He  considered  it  an  attack  upon  his  long  life  of 
stainless  probity. 

Madame  Lemprun  gave  up  all  her  husband's  prop- 
erty to  her  daughter,  Madame  Thuillier,  and  went 
to  live  with  her  father  at  Auteuil,  where  that  old 
gentleman  died  through  an  accident  in  1817.  Dis- 
mayed at  the  prospect  of  having  to  carry  on  her 
father's  farm  or  to  let  it,  Madame  Lemprun  besought 
Brigitte,  whose  capabilities  and  upright  dealing 
aroused  her  admiration,  to  administer  the  estate  of 
good  man  Galard  and  so  arrange  matters  that  her 
daughter  should  take  over  the  whole,  and  should 
agree  to  pay  her  fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year  and 
allow  her  to  live  in  the  house  at  Auteuil.  The  old 
farmer's  fields,  sold  in  small  parcels,  brought  thirty 
thousand  francs.  Lemprun's  inheritance  yielded  a 
like  amount;  and  these  two  sums,  added  to  the  mar- 
riage-portion, swelled  Celeste's  fortune,  in  1818,  to 
ninety  thousand  francs. 

The  marriage-portion  had  been  invested  in  shares 
in  the  Bank  at  a  time  when  they  were  worth  nine 
hundred  francs.  Brigitte  so  invested  the  sixty 
thousand  as  to  yield  five  thousand  a  year,  for  the 
five  per  cents  were  at  sixty,  and  one  certificate  for 
fifteen  hundred  francs  was  placed  in  the  name  of 
the  widow  Lemprun  for  her  life.  Thus,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1818,  the  six  hundred  francs 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  33 

paid  by  Brigitte,  Thuillier's  salary  of  thirty-four 
hundred  francs,  Celeste's  thirty-five  hundred,  and 
the  dividends  on  thirty-four  shares  in  the  Bank  gave 
the  Thuillier  household  a  yearly  income  of  eleven 
thousand  francs,  which  was  administered  by 
Brigitte  on  her  own  responsibility.  It  was  essen- 
tial to  dispose  of  the  financial  question  first  of  all, 
not  only  to  obviate  objections  on  that  score,  but  to 
get  it  out  of  the  way  of  the  drama. 

In  the  first  place  Brigitte  gave  five  hundred  francs 
a  month  to  her  brother,  and  steered  the  ship  so  that 
five  thousand  francs  paid  all  the  expenses  of  the 
household.  She  allowed  her  sister-in-law  fifty 
francs  a  month,  calling  her  attention  to  the  fact  that 
she  herself  spent  no  more  than  forty.  In  order  to 
ensure  her  domination  by  the  power  of  money,  Bri- 
gitte hoarded  the  surplus  of  her  own  income;  it  was 
said  in  the  government  offices  that  she  loaned  money 
at  usurious  rates  through  the  medium  of  her  brother, 
who  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  bill-discounter. 
Although  Brigitte  did  amass  a  capital  of  sixty  thous- 
and francs  between  1813  and  1830,  the  existence 
of  that  sum  can  be  explained  by  operations  in  the 
funds  which  fluctuated  forty  per  cent  in  that  period, 
and  there  is  no  occasion  to  resort  to  accusations,  be 
they  well  or  ill-founded,  the  truth  of  which  would 
add  nothing  to  the  interest  of  this  narrative. 

In  the  very  beginning  Brigitte  got  poor  Madame 

Thuillier  under  her  feet  by  the  first  digs  she  gave 

her  with  the  spur  and  by  her  cruel  pulling  upon  the 

bit     Refinement  of  tyranny  was  not  necessary,  as 

3 


34  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

the  victim  speedily  submitted  to  the  inevitable. 
Celeste,  who  was  quite  devoid  of  wit  and  education, 
and  accustomed  to  a  sedentary  life  and  an  atmos- 
phere of  tranquillity,  had  an  excessively  mild 
disposition,  and  Brigitte  had  gauged  her  most  accu- 
rately ;  she  was  pious  in  the  most  extended  sense  of 
the  word ;  she  would  have  undergone  the  harshest 
of  penances  to  atone  for  the  sin  of  having  injured  her 
neighbor,  although  unwittingly.  She  knew  abso- 
lutely nothing  of  life,  being  accustomed  to  be  waited 
on  by  her  mother,  who  kept  the  house  herself,  and 
compelled  to  abstain  from  active  movement  because 
of  a  lymphatic  tendency  which  made  the  slightest 
exertion  wearisome  to  her ;  she  was  a  true  daughter 
of  the  common  people  of  Paris,  among  whom  the 
children,  seldom  beautiful,  vary  but  little,  being  as 
they  are  the  fruit  of  poverty,  of  excessive  toil,  and 
of  houses  without  fresh  air,  freedom  of  action  or 
any  of  the  conveniences  of  life. 

At  the  time  of  the  marriage  Celeste  was  a  short, 
stout  creature,  with  a  fair  complexion  so  faded  as  to 
be  almost  revolting,  slow  of  motion,  and  with  a 
countenance  devoid  of  expression.  Her  forehead, 
far  too  extensive  and  prominent,  resembled  that  of 
a  person  afflicted  with  hydrocephalus,  and,  beneath 
that  wax-colored  dome,  her  face,  which  was  dispro- 
portionately small  and  ended  in  a  point  like  a 
mouse's  muzzle,  caused  some  of  her  friends  to  fear 
that  she  would  go  mad  sooner  or  later.  Nor  did  her 
light  blue  eyes  and  her  lips  wreathed  in  an  almost 
unchanging  smile  give  the  lie  to  that  thought  On 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  35 

the  solemn  day  of  her  nuptials  her  expression,  atti- 
tude and  manner  were  those  of  a  man  condemned  to 
death,  who  longs  to  have  it  over  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. 

"She's  rather  a  dose!" — said  Colleville  to  Thuil- 
lier. 

Brigitte  was  the  knife  to  be  thrust  into  this  slug- 
gish nature  to  which  she  offered  a  most  striking 
contrast.  In  her  face  could  be  remarked  the  traces 
of  a  severe,  regular  style  of  beauty,  marred  by  the 
hard,  ungrateful  toil  that  had  been  her  unvarying 
lot  since  her  infancy,  and  by  the  secret  privations 
to  which  she  had  subjected  herself  in  amassing 
her  little  store.  Her  skin,  which  was  covered 
with  blotches  at  an  early  age,  had  a  steel-like  tint. 
Her  brown  eyes  were  rimmed  with  black,  or  rather 
with  black  and  blue;  her  upper  lip  was  ornamented 
with  a  line  of  russet  down  which  resembled  a  wreath 
of  smoke;  her  lips  were  thin,  and  her  commanding 
brow  was  surmounted  by  a  mass  of  hair  once  black, 
but  now  turning  gray.  She  stood  as  erect  as  the 
loveliest  of  blondes,  and  everything  about  her  told 
of  severe  toil,  of  extinguished  fires,  and,  as  the 
sheriffs  say,  of  the  cost  of  her  exploits. 

In  Brigitte's  eyes  Celeste  was  simply  a  fortune  to 
be  clutched,  a  mother  to  undergo  the  pains  of  child- 
birth, an  additional  subject  in  her  empire.  She 
soon  reproached  her  for  being  so  soft — veule — a 
word  of  her  own,  and  the  jealous  old  maid,  who 
would  have  been  in  despair  to  have  an  energetic 
sister-in-law  thrust  upon  her,  felt  a  savage  delight 


36  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

in  stimulating  this  weak  creature's  inactivity. 
Celeste,  ashamed  to  see  her  sister-in-law  displaying 
her  enthusiasm  in  the  performance  of  the  duties  of 
housemaid  and  in  keeping  the  house,  tried  to  assist 
her;  she  fell  ill;  Brigitte  was  instantly  all  devotion 
to  her ;  she  waited  upon  her  as  if  she  were  the  dear- 
est of  sisters,  and  said  to  her  in  Thuillier's  pres- 
ence: "You  haven't  the  strength,  little  one,  so 
you  just  do  nothing  at  all !"  She  exhibited  Celeste's 
incapacity  by  lavishing  consolation  upon  her,  by 
assuming  that  air  of  gentle  compassion  for  the  weak 
in  which  the  strong  find  a  way  to  sing  their  own 
praises. 

As  despotic  natures  which  love  to  display  their 
strength  always  overflow  with  compassion  for 
physical  suffering,  she  nursed  her  sister-in-law  so 
devotedly  as  to  satisfy  Celeste's  mother  when  she 
came  to  see  her.  When  Madame  Thuillier's  health 
was  restored,  Brigitte  spoke  of  her,  in  a  loud  enough 
tone  for  her  to  hear,  as  a  "helpless  creature,  good 
for  nothing,"  etc.  Celeste  went  to  her  room  to 
weep  at  her  ease,  and  when  Thuillier  surprised  her 
wiping  away  her  tears,  he  excused  his  sister. 

"She's  a  good  creature,"  said  he,  "but  she's  very 
hasty;  she  loves  you  in  her  way;  she  treats  me 
just  like  that" 

Celeste,  remembering  the  motherly  care  she  had 
received  from  her  sister-in-law,  forgave  her.  Bri- 
gitte, however,  treated  her  brother  as  the  king  of 
the  establishment;  she  vaunted  his  qualities  to 
Celeste,  she  made  of  him  an  autocrat,  a  Ladislas, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  37 

an  infallible  pope.  Madame  Thuillier,  bereft  of  her 
father  and  grandfather,  and  almost  deserted  by  her 
mother,  who  came  to  see  her  on  Thursdays,  and  to 
whose  house  she  went  on  Sundays  in  fine  weather, 
had  no  one  but  her  husband  to  love,— first,  because 
he  was  her  husband,  and  next,  because,  in  her 
eyes,  he  was  still  Beau  Thuillier.  And  then,  too, 
he  sometimes  treated  her  as  his  wife,  and  all  these 
reasons  combined  to  make  him  the  object  of  her 
adoration.  He  seemed  the  more  perfect  to  her  in 
that  he  often  undertook  to  defend  her  and  scolded 
his  sister,  not  out  of  consideration  for  his  wife,  but 
from  pure  selfishness  and  to  have  peace  in  the  house 
during  the  few  moments  that  he  remained  there. 

Beau  Thuillier's  practice  was  to  dine  at  home, 
and  to  come  home  for  the  night  at  a  very  late  hour ; 
he  attended  balls  in  his  own  set,  quite  alone,  just  as 
if  he  were  still  a  bachelor.  Thus  the  two  women 
were  always  en  tete-d-tete.  Celeste  insensibly 
assumed  a  passive  attitude  and  became  what  Brigitte 
wished  her  to  be,  a  serf.  The  Queen  Elizabeth  of 
the  establishment  exchanged  her  domineering  atti- 
tude for  a  sort  of  pity  for  the  victim  so  constantly 
sacrificed.  She  ended  by  moderating  her  lofty  airs, 
her  cutting  words,  her  tone  of  contempt,  when  she 
was  certain  that  she  had  broken  her  sister  to  the 
yoke. 

As  soon  as  she  could  see  the  collar-galls  on  her 
victim's  neck,  she  took  care  of  her  as  of  something 
of  her  own,  and  Celeste  knew  happier  days.  By 
dint  of  comparing  the  beginning  with  the  sequel, 


38  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

she  began  to  feel  something  like  affection  for  her 
tormentor.  There  was  but  one  chance  of  the  poor 
slave  mustering  up  some  energy  in  her  own 
defence,  of  her  becoming  of  some  importance  in  the 
bosom  of  a  family  supported  by  her  fortune,  without 
her  knowledge,  and  where  she  had  only  the  crumbs 
that  fell  from  the  table, — but  one  chance, — and  that 
chance  did  not  occur. 

In  six  years  Celeste  bore  no  child.  Her  sterility, 
which  caused  her  to  shed  floods  of  tears  month  after 
month,  kept  Brigitte's  contempt  alive  for  a  long 
while;  she  taunted  her  with  being  a  good-for-noth- 
ing, not  even  able  to  bear  children.  The  old  maid, 
who  had  so  often  promised  to  love  her  brother's  child 
as  her  own,  was  many  years  accustoming  herself  to 
the  idea  of  this  irremediable  state  of  things. 

At  the  time  when  this  narrative  begins,  in  1840, 
Celeste,  at  forty-six,  had  ceased  to  weep,  for  she 
had  been  forced  to  accept  the  sad  certainty  that  she 
could  never  become  a  mother.  Strange  to  say,  after 
twenty-five  years  of  this  life,  in  which  she  had 
finally  blunted,  yes,  broken  her  knife,  Brigitte 
loved  Celeste  as  dearly  as  Celeste  loved  Brigitte. 
Time,  comfort,  the  perpetual  friction  of  domestic 
life,  had  no  doubt  made  the  angles  less  sharp,  and 
worn  the  rough  places  smooth,  and  Celeste's  lamb- 
like docility  and  resignation  made  the  autumn  skies 
serene.  The  two  women  were  drawn  together  by 
the  only  real  sentiment  that  ever  actuated  either  of 
them,  their  adoration  for  the  fortunate,  egotistical 
Thuillier. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  39 

It  came  to  pass  that  both  of  them,  being  childless, 
had,  like  all  women  who  have  longed  in  vain  for 
children,  lost  their  hearts  to  a  child.  This  factitious 
mother-love,  no  less  powerful,  by  the  way,  than  the 
real  article,  calls  for  an  explanation  which  will  take 
us  to  the  heart  of  this  drama,  and  will  account  for 
Mademoiselle  Thuillier's  success  in  adding  to  her 
brother's  occupations. 

Thuillier  had  entered  the  employ  of  the  govern- 
ment as  a  clerk  without  pay  at  the  same  time  as 
Colleville,  whom  we  have  already  spoken  of  as  his 
intimate  friend.  Colleville's  mode  of  life  was  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  uninteresting  machine-like 
menage  of  Thuillier,  and  if  it  is  impossible  not  to 
remark  that  this  chance  contrast  is  not  altogether 
moral,  we  must  add  that  before  making  up  one's 
mind  it  is  well  to  go  on  to  the  end  of  the  drama, 
which  is  unhappily  only  too  true,  and  for  which 
the  dramatist  is  not  responsible. 

This  Colleville  was  the  only  son  of  a  talented 
musician,  formerly  first  violin  at  the  Opera  under 
Francoeur  and  Rebel.  In  his  lifetime  he  used  to 
tell  the  same  anecdotes,  at  least  six  times  a  month, 
about  the  performances  of  the  Devin  de  Village  ;  he 
used  to  mimic  Jean- Jacques  Rousseau,  and  was 
wonderfully  successful  in  so  doing.  Colleville  and 
Thuillier  were  inseparable  allies,  and  had  no  secrets 
from  each  other ;  their  friendship,  which  began  at 
the  age  of  fifteen,  had  endured  without  a  cloud  till 

1839- 
Colleville  was  one  of  those  clerks  who  are  known 


40  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

in  the  departments  as  cumulards.*  Such  clerks 
always  owe  their  positions  to  their  industrious 
habits.  Colleville,  himself  no  mean  musician,  was 
indebted  to  his  father's  name  and  influence  for  the 
position  of  first  clarionet  at  the  Opera-Comique,  and, 
so  long  as  he  remained  single,  being  somewhat 
more  opulent  than  Thuillier,  often  shared  with  his 
friend.  But,  in  contrast  to  Thuillier,  Colleville 
made  a  love  match  with  Mademoiselle  Flavie,  the 
natural  daughter  of  a  famous  danseuse  at  the  Opera, 
her  putative  father  being  Du  Bourguier,  one  of  the 
richest  contractors  of  the  time,  who,  having  ruined 
himself  about  1800,  forgot  his  daughter  the  more 
readily  because  he  had  some  doubt  as  to  the  chastity 
of  the  famous  ballet-dancer. 

Both  by  birth  and  personal  appearance  Flavie 
seemed  destined  to  a  deplorable  future,  when  Colle- 
ville, who  frequently  called  upon  the  wealthy  oper- 
atic star,  fell  in  love  with  Flavie  and  married  her. 
Prince  Galathionne,  who  was  the  celebrated  dancer's 
protector  in  1815,  when  she  was  drawing  near  the 
close  of  her  brilliant  career,  gave  Flavie  a  dot  of 
twenty  thousand  francs,  and  the  mother  added  a 
most  magnificent  trousseau.  The  habitues  of  the 
house  and  the  premiere's  comrades  at  the  Opera 
made  handsome  presents  of  jewelry  and  plate,  so  that 
the  Colleville  establishment  was  much  richer  in 
luxuries  than  in  capital.  Flavie,  who  had  been 
reared  in  opulence,  was  installed  in  a  charming 
suite,  furnished  by  her  mother's  upholsterer,  and 

*  A  cumulard  performs  the  duties  usually  assigned  to  several. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  41 

there  the  young  woman  was  enthroned — a  young 
woman  with  a  decided  liking  for  art  and  artists  and 
for  a  certain  amount  of  refinement 

Madame  Colleville  was  at  the  same  time  pretty 
and  piquant,  clever,  gracious,  light  of  heart,  and,  to 
say  it  all  in  one  word,  a  fine  girl.  The  ballet- 
dancer  having  reached  the  age  of  forty-three,  left  the 
stage  and  went  into  the  country,  and  thus  deprived 
her  daughter  of  the  advantages  afforded  by  her 
soon-dissipated  wealth.  Madame  Colleville  kept  a 
pleasant  house,  but  it  was  very  expensive.  Between 
1816  and  1826  she  had  five  children.  From  seven 
to  nine  in  the  morning  Colleville  kept  books  for  a 
tradesman ;  at  ten  o'clock  he  was  at  his  desk,  and 
in  the  evening  he  was  a  musician.  By  blowing 
into  a  bit  of  wood  at  night  and  keeping  accounts  by 
double  entry  in  the  morning,  he  made  from  seven  to 
eight  thousand  francs  a  year. 

Madame  Colleville  aped  the  manners  of  ladies 
comme  il  faut;  she  received  on  Wednesdays,  gave 
a  concert  every  month  and  a  dinner  every  fortnight 
She  saw  Colleville  only  at  dinner  and  at  night 
when  he  came  home,  about  midnight;  even  then  it 
often  happened  that  she  had  not  returned.  She 
went  to  the  play,  for  which  she  often  had  com- 
plimentary boxes,  and  she  would  leave  a  line  for 
Colleville  to  come  for  her  at  such  and  such  a 
house,  where  she  was  to  dance  or  take  supper.  The 
table  at  Madame  Colleville's  was  most  excellent, 
and  the  society  there,  although  somewhat  mixed, 
was  extremely  entertaining;  she  received  famous 


42  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

actresses,  painters,  literary  men,  and  a  few  rich 
ones.  Madame  Colleville's  style  of  living  kept 
pace  with  that  of  Tullia,  premiere  danseuse  at  the 
Opera,  with  whom  she  was  on  intimate  terms;  but 
although  the  Collevilles  encroached  upon  their  cap- 
ital and  often  had  difficulty  in  paying  their  monthly 
bills,  Flavie  never  ran  in  debt 

Colleville  was  very  happy;  he  still  loved  his 
wife,  and  was  still  her  best  friend.  Being  always 
welcomed  with  an  affectionate  smile  and  with  con- 
tagious demonstrations  of  delight,  he  yielded  to  her 
irresistible,  charming  ways.  The  ferocious  activ- 
ity displayed  by  him  in  his  three  occupations  was 
well  suited  to  his  character  and  temperament  He 
was  a  stout,  pleasant-faced  fellow,  high-colored, 
jovial,  free  with  his  money,  and  full  of  whims.  In 
ten  years  there  was  not  a  single  quarrel  in  his 
household.  In  the  department  he  was  looked  upon 
as  a  hare-brained  creature, — like  all  artists,  they 
said, — but  superficial  observers  mistook  the  con- 
stant hurry  of  the  hard-working  man  for  the  going 
and  coming  of  a  busybody. 

Colleville  had  wit  enough  to  play  the  fool ;  he 
boasted  of  his  domestic  happiness,  and  took  the 
trouble  of  hunting  up  anagrams,  so  that  he  might 
pose  as  a  man  absorbed  by  that  passion.  The 
clerks  of  his  division  in  the  department,  the  chiefs 
of  bureau,  even  the  divisional  chiefs,  came  to  his 
concerts;  from  time  to  time  he  opportunely  slipped 
a  theatre  ticket  into  the  proper  hand,  for  his 
constant  absences  required  extreme  indulgence. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  43 

Rehearsals  occupied  about  half  of  the  time  he 
should  have  passed  at  his  desk,  but  the  musical 
talent  bequeathed  him  by  his  father  was  so  genuine 
and  profound  that  he  had  only  to  attend  general 
rehearsals.  Thanks  to  Madame  Colleville's  con- 
nections, the  theatre  and  the  ministry  both  bowed 
to  the  demands  of  the  worthy  pluralist's  position; 
moreover,  he  was  educating  with  great  care  a  little 
fellow  earnestly  recommended  by  his  wife,  a  great 
musician  in  futuro,  who  sometimes  took  his  place 
with  a  promise  of  succeeding  him. 

In  1827,  when  Colleville  resigned,  this  young  man 
became  first  clarionet.  The  only  criticism  ever 
made  upon  Flavie  was  this:  "Madame  Colleville  is 
a  little  slip  of  a  flirt!"  The  oldest  child,  born  in 
1816,  was  the  living  image  of  honest  Colleville.  In 
1818  Madame  Colleville  esteemed  the  cavalry 
above  everything,  even  art,  and  at  that  time  she 
distinguished  with  her  favor  a  sub-lieutenant  of  the 
Saint-Chamans  dragoons,  the  young  and  wealthy 
Charles  Gondreville,  who  died  sometime  afterward 
in  the  Spanish  campaign;  she  had  already  had  her 
second  son,  who  was  destined  thenceforth  to  a  mili- 
tary career.  In  1820  she  looked  upon  the  Bank  as 
the  nurse  of  industry,  the  mainstay  of  states, 
and  the  great  Keller,  the  renowned  orator,  was  her 
idol ;  she  bore  at  that  time  a  son,  Francois,  of  whom 
she  resolved  to  make  in  due  season  a  merchant,  and 
who  would  never  fail  to  enjoy  Keller's  protection. 
Toward  the  end  of  1820,  Thuillier,  the  intimate 
friend  of  both  Monsieur  and  Madame  Colleville,  and 


44  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

an  admirer  of  the  latter,  felt  the  need  of  pouring  his 
sorrows  into  that  excellent  woman's  bosom,  and  to 
her  he  detailed  his  conjugal  wretchedness;  he  had 
been  trying  for  six  years  to  have  children,  but  God 
did  not  smile  upon  his  efforts,  for  poor  Madame 
Thuiliier  went  through  with  her  nine  days'  devo- 
tion to  no  purpose;  she  had  been  to  Notre-Dame  de 
Liesse!  He  described  Celeste  from  every  point  of 
view,  and  the  words:  "Poor  Thuiliier!"  escaped 
Madame  Colleville,  who  was  herself  somewhat  low- 
spirited,  as  she  was  without  any  dominant  passion 
just  at  that  time.  She  poured  her  griefs  into  Thuil- 
lier's  heart  The  great  Keller,  the  hero  of  the  Left, 
was  in  reality  full  of  little  meannesses;  she  knew 
the  reverse  side  of  glory,  the  idiocies  of  the  Bank, 
the  prosiness  of  the  tribune.  The  orator  never 
spoke  except  in  the  Chamber,  and  he  had  behaved 
very  badly  to  her.  Thuiliier  waxed  wroth. 

"Only  stupid  men  know  how  to  love,"  said  he; 
"take  me!"  Beau  Thuiliier  was  reputed  to  be  pay- 
ing court  mildly  to  Madame  Colleville,  and  he 
became  one  of  her  attentifs,  a  word  dating  from  the 
Empire. 

"Aha !  you  have  an  eye  on  my  wife !"  said  Colle- 
ville, laughingly;  "lookout,  she'll  plant  you  as  she 
has  all  the  others." 

A  shrewd  remark,  whereby  Colleville  saved  his 
dignity  as  a  husband  in  the  department 

In  1820  and  1821  Thuiliier  presumed  upon  his  title 
as  a  friend  of  the  family  to  assist  Colleville,  who 
had  so  often  assisted  him  in  the  old  days,  and  in  the 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  45 

course  of  eighteen  months  he  loaned  him  nearly  ten 
thousand  francs,  intending  never  to  mention  it.  In 
the  spring  of  1821  Madame  Colleville  brought  into 
the  world  a  lovely  girl,  whose  godfather  and  god- 
mother were  Monsieur  and  Madame  Thuillier;  and 
she  was  christened  Celeste-Louise-Caroline-Bri- 
gitte,  for  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  insisted  upon 
bestowing  one  of  her  names  upon  the  little  angel. 

The  name  of  Caroline  was  a  graceful  compliment 
to  Colleville.  Old  mother  Lemprun  undertook  to 
put  the  little  creature  out  at  nurse  under  her  own 
eyes  at  Auteuil,  where  Celeste  and  her  sister-in-law 
went  to  see  her  twice  a  week.  As  soon  as  Madame 
Colleville  had  recovered  she  said  to  Thuillier, 
frankly  and  in  a  serious  tone: 

"My  dear  friend,  if  we  wish  to  continue  good 
friends,  be  nothing  more  than  our  friend;  Colleville 
is  fond  of  you,  and  one's  enough  in  a  house." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  tell  me,"  said  Thuillier  to 
Tullia,  the  dancer,  who  happened  to  be  calling  at 
Madame  Colleville's,  "why  women  don't  get 
attached  to  me?  I'm  not  an  Apollo  Belvedere,  but 
I'm  no  Vulcan,  either;  I'm  passably  good-looking, 
I'm  bright  and  faithful—" 

"Do  you  want  the  truth?"  said  Tullia. 

"Yes,"  said  Beau  Thuillier. 

"Very  good;  although  we  can  sometimes  love  a 
stupid  man,  we  never  love  a  fool." 

That  thrust  was  the  end  of  Thuillier;  he  never 
recovered  from  it;  he  fell  into  melancholy  and 
accused  women  of  being  capricious. 


46  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Didn't  I  tell  you  so?"— said  Colleville.  "I'm 
not  Napoleon,  my  dear  fellow,  and  I'm  mighty  glad 
I'm  not;  but  I  have  my  Josephine — a  pearl !" 

The  Secretary-General  of  the  Ministry,  des 
Lupeaulx,  to  whom  Madame  Colleville  attributed 
more  influence  than  he  really  possessed,  and  of 
whom  she  afterward  said:  ''He  was  one  of  my 
mistakes, " — was  the  next  lion  of  the  Colleville  salon 
and  reigned  there  for  some  time ;  but  as  he  had  not 
the  power  to  procure  Colleville's  appointment  to  the 
division  of  Bois-Levarit,  Flavie  had  the  good  sense 
to  be  angry  at  his  attentions  to  Madame  Rabourdin, 
the  wife  of  a  chief  of  bureau, — a  conceited  hussy, 
she  called  her,  who  had  never  invited  her  to  her 
house,  and  had  twice  insulted  her  by  not  coming  to 
her  concerts. 

Madame  Colleville  was  deeply  affected  by  young 
Gondreville's  death;  she  was  inconsolable;  she  felt, 
she  said,  as  if  the  hand  of  God  were  in  it.  In  1824 
she  reformed,  talked  about  economy,  abandoned  her 
receptions,  devoted  herself  to  her  children,  and  deter- 
mined to  be  a  good  mater  familias ;  her  friends  could 
not  find  that  she  had  any  favorite;  but  she  went 
regularly  to  church,  adopted  a  more  subdued  style  of 
dress,  wore  sober  grays,  and  talked  of  Catholicism 
and  the  proprieties;  and  this  approach  to  mysticism 
produced,  in  1825,  a  fine  little  boy,  whom  she  called 
Theodore,  that  is  to  say,  a  gift  from  God. 

In  1826,  the  prosperous  days  of  the  Congregation, 
Colleville  was  appointed  deputy-chief  in  the  Cler- 
geot  division,  and  in  1828  he  became  collector  of  an 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  47 

arrondissement  in  Paris.  He  obtained  the  Cross  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor,  so  that  he  might  some  day 
send  his  daughter  to  Saint-Denis  to  be  educated. 
The  half-free  scholarship  obtained  by  Keller  for 
Charles,  the  eldest  of  the  Colleville  children,  in 
1823,  was  given  to  the  second;  Charles  went  to 
Saint-Louis  College  with  a  full-free  scholarship, 
and  the  third  son,  who  was  honored  with  the 
patronage  of  Madame  la  Dauphine,  had  a  three- 
fourths-free  scholarship  at  Henri  Quatre  College. 

In  1830,  Colleville,  who  had  had  the  good  fortune 
to  lose  none  of  his  children,  was  compelled,  by  his 
attachment  to  the  dethroned  family,  to  offer  his 
resignation ;  but  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  make  a 
bargain,  so  to  speak,  whereby  he  obtained  a  pension 
of  twenty-four  hundred  francs  in  consideration  of 
his  long  time  of  service,  and  an  indemnity  of  ten 
thousand  francs  offered  by  his  successor;  he  was 
also  appointed  an  officer  in  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
Nevertheless  he  found  himself  in  straitened  circum- 
stances, and  in  1832  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  advised 
him  to  take  up  his  abode  near  them,  hinting  at  the 
possibility  of  his  obtaining  a  place  in  the  mayor's 
office,  which  he  actually  obtained  a  fortnight  later, 
and  which  was  worth  a  thousand  crowns. 

Charles  Colleville  had  entered  the  naval  school. 
The  colleges  at  which  the  other  two  boys  were  being 
educated  were  both  in  the  quarter.  The  seminary 
of  Saint-Sulpice,  which  the  latest  comer  was  some 
day  to  attend,  was  not  two  steps  from  the  Luxem- 
bourg. Thuillier  and  Colleville  determined  to  end 


48  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

their  days  together.  In  1833  Madame  Colleville, 
then  thirty-five  years  old,  took  up  her  quarters  on 
Rue  d'Enfer  at  the  corner  of  Rue  des  Deux-Eglises, 
with  Celeste  and  little  Theodore.  Colleville  was 
at  about  the  same  distance  from  the  mayor's  office 
and  from  Rue  Saint-Dominique.  After  an  exist- 
ence, alternately  brilliant  and  shabby,  full  of  excite- 
ment and  calm  and  reposeful,  the  Colleville  house- 
hold was  reduced  to  plain  middle-class  obscurity, 
and  to  fifty-four  hundred  francs  a  year  in  all. 

Celeste  was  at  this  time  twelve  years  old,  and 
gave  promise  of  being  a  beautiful  girl ;  she  must 
have  masters  and  her  education  would  cost  at  least 
two  thousand  francs  a  year.  Her  mother  felt  it  to 
be  necessary  to  keep  her  before  the  eyes  of  her  god- 
parents. She  therefore  adopted  the  suggestion  of 
Madame  Thuillier,  which  was  desirable  for  other 
reasons  as  well ;  and  that  old  maid  gave  Madame 
Colleville  clearly  to  understand,  but  without  bind- 
ing herself  to  anything,  that  her  brother's  fortune, 
her  sister-in-law's  and  her  own  were  all  destined 
for  Celeste.  The  child  had  remained  at  Auteuil 
until  she  was  seven,  adored  by  dear  old  Madame 
Lemprun,  who  died  in  1829,  leaving  a  little  hoard 
of  twenty  thousand  francs  and  a  house,  which  was 
sold  for  the  enormous  sum  of  twenty-eight  thousand 
francs.  The  little  witch  had  seen  but  little  of  her 
mother  and  a  great  deal  of  Madame  and  Mademoi- 
selle Thuillier  after  1829,  the  date  of  her  return  to 
the  paternal  roof.  In  1833  she  fell  under  the  domi- 
nation of  Flavie,  who  thereupon  exerted  herself  to 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  49 

fulfil  her  duties,  and  actually  outran  them,  as  all 
women  do  who  are  spurred  on  by  remorse.  Without 
being  a  cruel  mother,  she  kept  her  daughter  within 
very  strict  limits;  she  remembered  her  own  bring- 
ing up, and  took  an  oath  in  her  own  mind  to  make 
Celeste  an  honest  woman,  not  a  wanton.  She  took 
her  to  mass  therefore,  and  had  her  attend  communion 
for  the  first  time  under  the  guidance  of  a  Parisian 
cure,  who  subsequently  became  a  bishop.  Celeste's 
piety  was  the  more  genuine  because  her  godmother, 
Madame  Thuillier,  was  a  saint,  and  the  child  wor- 
shiped her  godmother;  she  had  a  feeling  that  the 
poor  neglected  wife  loved  her  more  dearly  than  her 
own  mother  did. 

From  1833  to  1840  she  received  what  was,  accord- 
ing to  bourgeois  ideas,  a  magnificent  education.  The 
best  of  music-teachers  made  her  a  passable  musi- 
cian; she  could  paint  prettily  in  water-colors;  she 
danced  like  a  fairy;  she  had  learned  the  French 
language  and  history,  geography,  English,  Italian, 
everything,  in  short,  that  a  young  ladycomme  ilfaut 
should  know.  Of  medium  height,  rather  stout,  and 
afflicted  with  nearsightedness,  she  was  neither  plain 
nor  pretty;  she  lacked  neither  a  fair  skin  nor  good 
coloring,  but  she  was  entirely  uninstructed  in  the 
ways  of  society.  She  was  very  sensitive,  though 
she  seldom  showed  it,  and  both  her  godparents  and 
her  father  and  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  were  unani- 
mous on  this  point,  the  great  resource  of  mothers, 
that  Celeste  was  susceptible  to  the  tender  passion. 
One  of  her  fine  points  was  her  magnificent  silky 

4 


50  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

chestnut  hair ;  but  her  'hands  and  feet  betrayed  her 
bourgeois  origin. 

Celeste  was  possessed  of  those  virtues  which 
attract  friendship;  she  was  kind-hearted,  simple  in 
her  ways,  and  entirely  free  from  bitterness;  she 
loved  her  father  and  mother  and  would  have  sub- 
mitted to  any  sacrifice  herself  for  them.  As  she 
had  been  brought  up  in  profound  admiration  of  her 
godfather,  as  well  by  Brigitte,  who  would  have  the 
child  call  her  Aunt  Brigitte,  as  by  Madame  Thuillier, 
and  by  her  own  mother,  who  became  more  and  more 
intimate  with  the  old  beau  of  the  Empire,  Celeste 
had  a  most  exalted  idea  of  the  ex-deputy-chief.  The 
house  on  Rue  Saint-Dominique  had  much  the  same 
effect  upon  her  that  the  Tuileries  has  upon  a  courtier 
of  the  new  dynasty. 

Thuillier  had  not  successfully  resisted  the  beat- 
ing-out process  of  the  administrative  mill,  wherein 
one  becomes  thinner  in  proportion  to  the  length  of 
the  process.  Worn  out  by  tedious  labor,  as  well 
as  by  his  exploits  as  a  favorite  of  the  fair  sex,  the 
ex-deputy-chief  had  lost  all  the  faculties  he  ever 
possessed  when  he  came  to  live  on  Rue  Saint-Dom- 
inique; but  his  tired  face,  which  wore  a  surly  look, 
curiously  mingled  with  a  certain  contented  expres- 
sion resembling  the  snug  self-satisfaction  of  the 
upper  clerk,  made  a  deep  impression  upon  Celeste. 
She  alone  could  arouse  animation  in  that  pallid  face. 
She  knew  that  she  was  the  joy  of  the  Thuillier 
household. 

The    Collevilles    and    their    children    naturally 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  5 1 

became  the  nucleus  of  the  social  circle  which  Made- 
moiselle Thuillier  was  ambitious  to  collect  about  her 
brother.  A  former  clerk  in  the  division  La  Billar- 
diere,  who  had  lived  more  than  thirty  years  in  the 
Quartier  Saint- Jacques,  one  Phellion,  major  of  a 
legion,  was  promptly  seized  upon  by  the  former  col- 
lector and  the  former  deputy-chief  at  their  first  con- 
sultation. Phellion  was  one  of  the  most  highly 
esteemed  men  in  the  arrondissement.  He  had  a 
daughter,  formerly  sub-mistress  at  the  Lagrave 
boarding-school,  now  married  to  Monsieur  Barniol, 
a  teacher,  of  Rue  Saint-Hyacinthe. 

Phell ion's  eldest  son  was  professor  of  mathematics 
at  a  royal  college;  he  gave  lessons,  took  private 
pupils,  and,  as  his  father  expressed  it,  devoted  him- 
self to  pure  mathematics.  The  second  son  was  at 
the  School  of  Bridges  and  Highways.  Phellion  had 
a  pension  of  nine  hundred  francs  and  a  total  income 
of  something  over  nine  thousand,  the  fruit  of  his 
wife's  savings  and  his  own  during  thirty  years  of 
hard  work  and  privation.  He  also  owned  a  little 
house  with  a  garden,  where  he  made  his  home,  in 
the  Impasse  des  Feuillantines.-^-In  thirty  years  the 
old  word  cul-de-sac  has  not  once  been  used. — 

Dutocq,  the  clerk  to  the  justice  of  the  peace,  was 
formerly  a  clerk  in  the  Treasury  department;  hav- 
ing fallen  a  victim  to  one  of  those  necessities  which 
sometimes  occur  in  representative  government,  he 
had  submitted  to  be  made  the  scapegoat  in  an  ad- 
ministration scandal,  brought  to  light  by  the  budget 
committee,  and  secretly  rewarded  by  a  round  sum 


52  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

in  cash;  he  was  thus  enabled  to  purchase  the  office 
of  justice's  clerk.  This  man,  who  had  little  sense  of 
honor,  and  was  known  as  a  spy  in  the  department, 
was  not  received  as  cordially  as  he  thought  he 
should  have  been  by  the  Thuilliers;  but  the  cool- 
ness of  his  landlords  made  him  persist  in  thrusting 
himself  upon  them. 

He  had  never  been  married,  and  was  not  without 
his  vices;  he  concealed  his  manner  of  living  most 
sedulously,  and  was  very  clever  in  winning  the 
good-will  of  his  superiors  by  flattery.  The  magis- 
trate was  much  attached  to  Dutocq.  The  shameless 
creature  succeeded  in  inducing  the  Thuilliers  to  tol- 
erate him  by  the  mean,  vulgar  adulation  which 
never  fails  of  its  effect  He  knew  Thuillier's  life 
from  beginning  to  end,  his  relations  with  the  Colle- 
villes,  especially  with  Madame;  they  stood  in  awe 
of  his  redoubtable  tongue,  and  the  Thuilliers,  with- 
out admitting  him  among  their  intimate  friends,  put 
up  with  him.  The  family  which  became  the  bright- 
est flower  in  the  Thuillier  salon  was  that  of  a  poor 
little  clerk,  once  an  object  of  charity  in  the  depart- 
ments, who,  incited  thereto  by  poverty,  and  with 
an  idea,  had  left  the  employ  of  the  government  in 
1827,  in  order  to  go  into  business. 

Minard  thought  that  he  could  see  a  fortune  in  one 
of  those  immoral  schemes,  which  tend  to  bring 
French  commerce  into  disrepute,  but,  in  1827,  had 
not  yet  been  emasculated  by  publicity.  Minard 
purchased  tea,  and  mixed  with  it  in  equal  propor- 
tions tea  that  had  already  been  once  used ;  he  also 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  53 

manipulated  and  changed  the  component  parts  of 
chocolate  in  such  a  way  as  to  enable  him  to  sell  it 
at  a  low  price.  This  traffic  in  colonial  produce, 
begun  in  the  Quartier  Saint-Marcel,  constituted 
Minard  a  merchant;  he  had  a  warehouse,  and  by 
virtue  of  the  business  connections  thus  formed  he 
was  able  to  purchase  at  first  hand ;  he  conducted 
honestly,  and  on  a  large  scale,  the  business  which 
he  had  at  first  carried  on  in  a  questionable  way. 
He  became  a  distiller,  handled  enormous  quantities 
of  produce,  and  in  1835  was  supposed  to  be  the 
richest  merchant  in  the  Place  Maubert  district  He 
had  purchased  one  of  the  finest  houses  on  Rue  des 
Mac.ons-Sorbonne ;  he  had  been  deputy-mayor ;  and 
in  1839  he  was  appointed  mayor  of  his  arrondisse- 
ment  and  a  judge  of  the  Tribunal  de  Commerce. 
He  had  a  carriage  and  an  estate  near  Lagny ;  his 
wife  wore  diamonds  at  the  court  balls,  and  he  was 
swollen  with  pride  by  the  rosette  of  an  officer  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  in  his  buttonhole. 

Minard  and  his  wife  were  extremely  benevolent, 
however.  Perhaps  they  proposed  to  restore  at  re- 
tail to  the  poor  what  they  had  stolen  by  wholesale 
from  the  public.  Phellion,  Colleville  and  Thuillier 
fell  in  with  Minard  at  the  elections,  and  there 
resulted  an  intimacy  with  theCollevilles  and  Thuil- 
liers  which  was  made  doubly  close  by  the  fact  that 
Madame  Zelie  Minard  seemed  enchanted  to  have  her 
young  lady  make  the  acquaintance  of  Celeste  Colle- 
ville. It  was  at  a  large  ball  given  by  the  Minards 
that  Celeste,  being  then  sixteen  and  a  half  years 


54  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

old,  made  her  first  appearance  in  society,  dressed  in 
consonance  with  her  name,  which  seemed  to  be  pro- 
phetic of  her  life.  Overjoyed  as  she  was  to  become 
the  friend  of  Mademoiselle  Minard,  her  senior  by 
four  years,  she  compelled  her  father  and  godfather 
to  cultivate  the  Minard  family,  with  all  its  untold 
wealth  and  its  gilded  salons,  frequented  by  some 
second-rate  political  celebrities:  Monsieur  Popinot, 
afterward  Minister  of  Commerce;  Cochu,  since 
created  Baron  Cochu;  and  a  former  clerk  of  the 
Clergeot  division  at  the  Treasury  department,  who, 
being  deeply  interested  in  a  large  drug  concern,  was, 
jointly  with  Monsieur  Anselme  Popinot,  the  oracle 
of  the  Quartier  des  Lombards  and  des  Bourdonnais. 
Minard's  oldest  son,  an  advocate,  who  aspired  to 
step  into  the  shoes  of  the  advocates  who  had  been 
dismissed  from  the  Palais  since  1830  for  political 
reasons,  was  the  genius  of  the  family,  and  his 
mother  and  father  were  equally  anxious  to  find  a 
desirable  wife  for  him.  Zelie  Minard,  once  a  flower- 
maker,  had  a  passionate  longing  for  the  higher  social 
spheres,  and  was  determined  to  force  her  way  into 
them  through  the  marriages  of  her  son  and  daughter, 
while  Minard,  who  was  wiser  than  she,  and  was 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  sturdy  middle-class 
common-sense  which  the  Revolution  of  July  intro- 
duced into  the  veins  of  the  ruling  powers,  thought 
of  nothing  but  the  question  of  fortune. 

He  haunted  the  Thuillier  salon,  seeking  to  glean 
information  as  to  the  probable  amount  of  Celeste's 
inheritance.  He  had  heard,  as  Dutocq  and  Phellion 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  55 

had,  the  gossip  caused  by  the  intimacy  of  the 
Thuilliers  with  Flavie,  and  at  the  first  glance  he 
detected  the  idolatrous  affection  of  the  Thuilliers  for 
their  godchild.  Dutocq,  in  order  to  worm  his  way 
into  Minard's  intimacy,  flattered  him  in  the  most 
servile  way.  When  Minard,  the  Rothschild  of  the 
neighborhood,  appeared  in  the  Thuillier  salon,  he 
compared  him,  not  without  adroitness,  to  Napoleon, 
he  found  him  now  so  fat  and  ruddy  and  blooming, 
after  knowing  him  long  before  at  the  bureau,  thin 
and  pale  and  sickly.  "When  you  were  in  the 
division  La  Billardiere,  you  were  like  Napoleon 
before  the  eighteenth  Brumaire,  and  now  I  see  be- 
fore me  the  Napoleon  of  the  Empire!"  Neverthe- 
less, Minard  received  his  advances  coldly  and  did  not 
invite  him;  and  in  this  way  he  made  a  mortal 
enemy  of  the  malicious  clerk. 


* 

Monsieur  and  Madame  Phellion,  honest,  worthy 
folk  though  they  were,  could  not  forbear  making 
their  little  calculations  and  conceiving  hopes.  They 
thought  that  Celeste  would  be  an  excellent  match  for 
their  son  the  professor ;  and  so,  in  order  to  have  a 
party  of  their  own  in  the  Thuillier  salon  they 
brought  thither  their  son-in-law,  Monsieur  Barniol, 
a  man  much  considered  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Jacques,  together  with  an  old  employe  of  the  mayor's 
office,  whose  place  Colleville  had  in  a  certain 
sense  spirited  away,  for  Monsieur  Leudigeois, — such 
was  his  name, — a  clerk  of  twenty  years'  standing, 
expected,  as  a  reward  of  his  long  service,  the  secre- 
taryship secured  by  Colleville.  Thus  the  Phellions 
formed  a  compact  phalanx  composed  of  seven  per- 
sons, all  faithful  to  its  interests;  the  Colleville 
family  was  quite  as  numerous,  and  on  certain  Sun- 
days there  were  thirty  people  in  the  Thuillier 
salon.  Thuillier  renewed  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Saillards,  the  Baudoyers,  the  Falleixes,  all  people  of 
good  standing  in  the  Place-Royale  Quartier,  and 
they  were  often  asked  to  dine. 

Madame  Colleville  was  the  most  distinguished 
person  among  the  ladies  of  this  circle,  as  Minard 
junior  and  Professor  Phellion  were  the  superior 
men;  all  the  others,  uneducated,  devoid  of  ideas, 
and  sprung  from  the  lower  orders,  typified  all  the 

(57) 


58  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

absurd  characteristics  of  the  lesser  bourgeoisie. 
Although  every  fortune  won  by  hard  work  is  sup- 
posed to  imply  some  sort  of  talent,  Minard  was  a 
mere  bag  of  wind.  Airing  his  rhetoric  in  compli- 
cated sentences,  mistaking  servility  for  politeness 
and  set  phrases  for  wit,  he  uttered  commonplaces 
with  a  self-possession  and  flourish  which  were 
accepted  as  flights  of  eloquence.  All  those  words 
which  mean  nothing  and  answer  all  purposes:  pro- 
gress, steam,  coal,  National  Guard,  democratic  ele- 
ment, tendency  to  combine,  public  order,  legality, 
movement  and  resistance,  intimidation,  seemed  in- 
vented for  Minard,  whatever  phase  politics  might 
assume;  he  simply  paraphrased  the  ideas  of  his 
favorite  newspaper.  Julien  Minard,  the  young  ad- 
vocate, suffered  as  much  from  his  father  as  his 
father  suffered  from  his  wife.  With  their  increase 
of  fortune  Zelie  had  put  forward  claims  to  social 
recognition,  although  she  had  never  been  able  to 
learn  French;  she  had  become  very  stout,  and  amid 
her  luxurious  surroundings  resembled  nothing  so 
much  as  a  cook  married  to  her  master. 

Phellion,  the  type  of  the  lower  middle-class,  had 
as  many  estimable  as  absurd  qualities.  Having 
been  accustomed  to  a  subordinate  position  during  his 
whole  life  in  the  department,  he  respected  his  social 
superiors.  For  that  reason  he  had  nothing  to  say 
in  Minard's  presence.  He  had  succeeded  admirably 
in  avoiding  the  shoals,  at  the  critical  period  of 
retirement  from  office,  and  this  is  how  he  did  it 
The  worthy  and  excellent  man  had  never  been 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  59 

able  to  gratify  his  inclinations.  He  loved  the  city 
of  Paris;  he  was  deeply  interested  in  all  such  mat- 
ters as  the  laying  out  of  streets  and  squares,  and  in 
public  improvements  generally;  he  was  the  sort  of 
man  who  would  stand  for  two  hours  in  front  of  a 
house  that  was  being  torn  down.  He  might  be  seen 
planted  fearlessly  on  his  legs,  nose  in  air,  waiting 
for  the  fall  of  a  stone  which  a  mason  was  prying  out 
with  a  crowbar  on  top  of  a  wall,  nor  would  he  leave 
the  place  until  the  stone  fell ;  and  when  at  last  it 
fell,  he  would  go  his  way  as  well  pleased  as  an 
academician  could  be  at  the  failure  of  a  romantic 
drama.  Genuine  supernumeraries  of  the  great  social 
comedy,  Phellion,  Leudigeois  and  their  fellows 
played  the  part  of  the  chorus  in  the  old  tragedies. 
They  wept  when  somebody  else  wept,  laughed  when 
it  was  time  to  laugh,  and  sang  as  a  refrain  the  story 
of  the  public  woes  and  joys;  triumphing  in  their 
corner  over  the  triumphs  of  Algiers,  Constantine, 
Lisbon  and  Saint- Jean-d'Ulloa;  deploring  alike  the 
death  of  Napoleon  and  the  sad  disasters  of  Saint- 
Merri  and  Rue  Transnonnain;  bewailing  the  deaths 
of  illustrious  men  who  were  utterly  unknown  to 
them.  But  Phellion,  it  must  be  said,  appeared  in 
two  aspects ;  he  conscientiously  weighed  the  argu- 
ments of  the  opposition  and  those  of  the  government 
Let  there  be  fighting  in  the  streets  and  Phellion 
had  the  courage  to  declare  his  opinions  before 
his  neighbors;  he  hurried  to  Place  Saint-Michel, 
the  rendezvous  of  his  battalion,  took  pity  on  the 
government  and  did  his  duty.  Before  and  during 


60  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

the  emeute  he  supported  the  dynasty,  the  work 
of  the  Days  of  July;  but,  as  soon  as  the  political 
prosecutions  began  he  went  over  to  the  accused. 
This  innocent  weathercockism  was  duplicated  in  his 
political  opinions;  his  answer  to  everything  was  the 
Colossus  of  the  North.  In  his  mind,  as  in  that  of 
the  old  Constitutionnel,  England  was  an  old  lady  with 
a  double  face ;  alternately  perfidious  Albion  and  the 
model  country ;  perfidious,  when  the  interests  of  poor, 
bruised  France,  or  Napoleon,  were  at  stake;  the 
model  country,  when  the  mistakes  of  the  govern- 
ment were  under  discussion.  With  the  newspaper 
he  admitted  the  claims  of  the  democratic  element, 
and,  in  conversation,  refused  all  composition  with 
the  republican  spirit  The  republican  spirit  meant 
1793,  the  barricades,  the  Terror,  the  Agrarian  law. 
The  democratic  element  was  the  development  of 
the  petty  bourgeoisie,  the  reign  of  the  Phellions. 

The  honest  old  fellow  was  always  dignified;  dig- 
nity is  the  best  epitome  of  his  life.  He  brought  up 
his  children  in  a  dignified  way,  he  was  always  their 
father  in  their  eyes  and  insisted  upon  being  looked 
up  to  in  his  own  house  as  he  looked  up  to  the  ruling 
powers  and  his  superiors.  He  never  ran  in  debt 
If  he  served  as  a  juror,  his  conscience  made  him 
sweat  blood  and  water  to  follow  the  intricacies  of  a 
lawsuit,  and  he  never  laughed  even  when  the  court, 
the  audience  and  the  public  officials  laughed.  He 
was  obliging  in  the  last  degree  and  gave  away  his 
time  and  his  trouble,  everything  except  his  money. 
Felix  Phellion,  his  son  the  professor,  was  his  idol ; 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  6 1 

he  believed  him  to  be  capable  of  attaining  member- 
ship in  the  Academy  of  Sciences. 

Between  the  audacious  nullity  of  Minard  and  the 
straightforward  idiocy  of  Phellion,  Thuillier  was 
like  some  neutral  substance,  but  he  had  something 
in  common  with  them  both  by  virtue  of  his  sad 
experience.  He  concealed  the  emptiness  of  his 
brain  by  a  profusion  of  hackneyed  phrases,  just  as 
he  concealed  the  yellow  skin  of  his  skull  with  the 
long  threads  of  gray  hair,  brought  over  from  behind 
with  infinite  skill  by  his  hair-dresser's  comb. 

"In  any  other  career,"  he  would  say,  referring  to 
the  government  employ,  "I  should  have  gone  ahead 
much  faster." 

He  had  seen  that  well-doing  was  possible  in  theory, 
but  impossible  in  practice,  and  that  the  proper  results 
did  not  follow  from  given  premises;  he  was  fond  of 
telling  about  instances  of  injustice,  petty  intrigues 
and  the  Rabourdin  affair. — See  The  Civil  Service. 

"After  that,  one  can  believe  in  anything  and 
nothing,"  he  would  say.  "Ah!  a  government  is  a 
villainous  thing,  and  I'm  very  lucky  to  not  have  a 
son  to  start  in  on  that  hunt  for  places." 

Colleville,  always  plump  and  smiling  and  a  good 
fellow,  inveterate  punster,  maker  of  anagrams, 
always  busy,  was  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  bour- 
geois of  good  parts  with  a  taste  for  raillery, — talent 
without  success,  persistent  work  without  result, 
aimless  wit,  useless  talent,  for  he  was  an  excellent 
musician  and  played  only  for  his  daughter, — and 
with  it  all  an  air  of  good-humored  resignation. 


62  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

This  salon  was,  as  will  be  seen,  a  sort  of  provin- 
cial salon,  illuminated  by  the  glare  of  the  never- 
ending  Parisian  conflagration;  in  its  mediocrity  and 
its  platitudes  it  followed  the  current  of  the  age. 
The  latest  expression  and  the  latest  thing,  for  in 
Paris  the  expression  and  the  thing  are  like  the  horse 
and  its  rider,  reached  there  on  the  rebound.  They 
always  waited  impatiently  for  Monsieur  Minard, 
who  was  likely  to  know  the  truth  as  to  affairs  of 
moment  In  the  Thuillier  salon  the  women  were 
devoted  to  the  Jesuits;  the  men  defended  the  Uni- 
versity; but,  as  a  general  rule,  the  women  were 
content  to  listen.  An  intelligent  man,  if  he  could 
have  endured  the  insufferable  tedium  of  these  even- 
ing parties,  would  have  laughed  as  heartily  as  at 
one  of  Moliere's  comedies,  to  hear  such  remarks  as 
these  after  endless  discussions : 

"Could  the  Revolution  of  1789  have  been 
avoided  ?  Louis  the  Fourteenth's  heavy  loans  laid 
the  foundation  of  it  Louis  XV.,  a  selfish  man,  of 
formal  intellect — he  said:  'If  I  were  Lieutenant  of 
Police  I  would  suppress  cabriolets'— a  dissolute  king, 
you've  heard  of  his  Pare  aux  Cerfs ! — had  much  to 
do  with  opening  the  abyss  of  revolution.  Monsieur 
de  Necker,  a  mischief-making  Genevan,  gave  the 
signal.  Foreigners  have  always  had  a  grudge 
against  France.  The  maximum  injured  the  Revo- 
lution a  good  deal.  As  a  matter  of  law  Louis  XVI. 
ought  not  to  have  been  convicted :  he'd  have  been 
acquitted  by  a  jury.  Why  did  Charles  X.  fall? 
Napoleon  was  a  great  man,  and  the  details  which 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  63 

prove  his  genius  are  all  of  the  nature  of  anecdotes : 
he  took  five  pinches  of  snuff  a  minute,  and  kept  it 
in  leather-lined  pockets  made  to  fasten  on  his  vest. 
He  adjusted  all  the  contractors'  accounts;  he  went 
to  Rue  Saint-Denis  to  find  out  the  price  of  things. 
Talma  was  his  friend;  Talma  taught  him  his  ges- 
tures, but  he  always  refused  to  give  Talma  a  decora- 
tion. The  Emperor  mounted  guard  for  a  soldier  who 
fell  asleep,  so  as  to  prevent  his  being  shot.  Such 
things  as  that  made  the  soldiers  worship  him.  Louis 
XVIII.,  although  he  was  a  man  of  sense,  was  unjust 
to  him  when  he  called  him  Monsieur  de  Buonaparte. 
The  present  government's  great  mistake  is  in  allow- 
ing itself  to  be  led  instead  of  leading.  They  take 
too  low  a  stand.  They're  afraid  of  energetic  men ; 
they  ought  to  have  torn  the  treaties  of  1815  to  bits, 
and  demanded  the  Rhine  from  Europe.  They  play 
too  much  with  the  same  men  at  the  ministry." 

"We've  had  enough  of  this  intellectual  battle," 
Mademoiselle  Thuillier  would  say  after  one  of  these 
luminous  deliverances;  "the  altar's  all  ready;  make 
your  little  offering." 

The  old  maid  always  put  an  end  to  these  discus- 
sions, of  which  the  women  soon  tired,  with  this  re- 
mark. 

If  all  these  preliminary  facts,  all  these  general 
statements  had  not  been  presented,  as  a  sort  of  in- 
troduction, to  form  a  frame  for  this  Scene,  to  give  an 
idea  of  the  characteristics  of  this  class  of  society, 
the  drama  would  perhaps  have  suffered  for  the  lack 
of  them.  Moreover,  this  sketch  is  absolutely  true  to 


64  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

life,  and  depicts  the  morals  of  a  social  stratum  of 
some  consequence,  especially  if  we  consider  that  the 
political  system  of  the  younger  branch  of  the  Bour- 
bons is  founded  thereon. 

The  winter  of  1839  was,  in  a  way,  the  time  when 
the  Thuillier  salon  attained  its  greatest  splendor. 
The  Minards  came  thither  almost  every  Sunday; 
when  they  were  invited  elsewhere  for  the  evening 
they  would  begin  by  passing  an  hour  there,  where 
Minard  would  generally  leave  his  wife  taking  his 
daughter  and  his  eldest  son,  the  advocate,  with 
him.  This  assiduity  on  the  part  of  the  Minards  was 
due  to  a  meeting  that  took  place — it  was  strange  they 
had  never  met  before — between  Messieurs  Metivier, 
Barbet  and  Minard,  on  a  certain  evening  when 
those  desirable  tenants  had  remained  somewhat 
longer  than  usual  talking  with  Mademoiselle  Thuil- 
lier. Minard  learned  from  Barbet  that  the  old  maid 
took  his  notes  for  about  thirty  thousand  francs  at 
six  months  at  seven  and  a  half  per  cent,  and  that 
she  loaned  about  the  same  amount  to  Metivier,  so 
that  she  must  have  at  least  a  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  francs  available. 

"I  discount  notes  of  the  trade  at  twelve  per  cent, 
and  take  only  well-secured  paper.  Nothing  could  be 
more  convenient  to  me,"  said  Barbet  "1  say  that 
she  has  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  francs,  for 
she  can't  borrow  at  the  Bank  for  longer  than  ninety 
days." 

"So  she  has  an  account  at  the  Bank?"  queried 
Minard. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  65 

"I  think  so,"  said  Barbet 

As  he  was  on  intimate  terms  with  a  governor  of  the 
Bank,  Minard  found  out  that  Mademoiselle  Thuillier 
actually  had  a  loan  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs, 
secured  by  a  pledge  of  forty  shares.  This  security 
was,  so  he  said,  quite  unnecessary ;  the  Bank  had 
great  consideration  for  a  person  who  was  so  well 
known  to  them  and  who  managed  the  affairs  of  Ce- 
leste Lemprun,  the  daughter  of  a  clerk  whose  ser- 
vice was  coeval  with  the  Bank's  existence  at  the 
time  of  his  retirement  Moreover,  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier  had  never  once  overrun  her  credit  in 
twenty  years.  She  always  sent  notes  for  sixty 
thousand  francs  a  month  on  three  months'  time, 
which  made  about  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand. 
The  shares  pledged  represented  a  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand,  so  that  they  ran  no  risk  whatever, 
for  the  notes  were  always  worth  sixty  thousand. 
"So,  if  she  should  send  us  a  hundred  thousand  in 
notes  the  third  month,"  said  the  censeur,  "we 
shouldn't  reject  a  single  one  of  them.  She  has  a 
house  worth  more  than  a  hundred  thousand,  which 
isn't  mortgaged.  Besides,  all  her  notes  come  from 
Barbet  and  Metivier,  and  have  four  names  on  them, 
including  hers." 

"Why  does  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  work  so  hard  ?" 
Minard  asked  Metivier. — "That  would  be  a  good 
match  tor  you,"  he  added. 

"Oh!  I  can  do  better  by  marrying  one  of  my 
cousins,"  was  the  reply;  "my  Uncle  Metivier 
has  told  me  all  about  his  business;  he  has  a 
5 


66  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

hundred  thousand  a  year,  and  no  one  but  two 
daughters." 

What  a  close-mouthed  creature  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier  was,  to  say  nothing  of  her  investments  to 
anyone,  not  even  to  her  brother;  although  she 
tossed  into  her  hoard  the  sums  saved  out  of  Madame 
Thuillier's  income,  as  well  as  her  own,  it  would  be 
strange  if  a  ray  of  light  did  not  finally  penetrate 
beneath  the  bushel  which  concealed  her  treasure. 

Dutocq,  who  haunted  Barbet's  shop,  and  who 
resembled  Barbet  in  more  than  one  point  both  in 
character  and  features,  had  estimated  the  savings  of 
theThuilliers  at  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs 
in  1838 — a  more  accurate  estimate  than  Minard's — 
and  he  was  able  to  keep  track  of  the  accretions 
secretly,  by  reckoning  the  probable  profit  with  the 
aid  of  that  shrewd  bill-broker,  Barbet 

"Celeste  will  have  from  us  two  hundred  thousand 
francs  in  cash,"  said  the  old  maid  in  confidence  to 
Barbet,  "and  Madame  Thuillier  proposes  to  provide 
in  the  marriage-contract  that  she  shall  have  the 
reversion  of  her  property.  As  for  myself,  my  will  is 
all  made.  My  brother  will  have  it  all  as  long  as  he 
lives,  and  Celeste  will  be  my  heiress,  when  he  dies. 
Monsieur  Cardot,  my  notary,  is  my  executor." 

Mademoiselle  Thuillier  urged  her  brother  to  renew 
his  former  relations  with  the  Saillards,  Baudoyers 
and  Falleixes,  who  occupied  a  position  in  the  Quar- 
tier  Saint-Antoine,  where  Monsieur  Saillard  was 
mayor,  analogous  to  that  of  the  Thuilliers  and  Mi- 
nards  in  their  quarter.  Cardot,  the  notary,  brought 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  67 

forward  a  claimant  to  Celeste's  hand  in  the  person 
of  Maitre  Godeschal,  an  advocate  and  successor  to 
Derville, — a  man  of  thirty-six,  of  good  parts ;  he  had 
paid  a  hundred  thousand  francs  down  for  his  office 
and  the  two  hundred  thousand  of  Celeste's  dot 
would  pay  the  balance.  Minard  procured  Gode- 
schal's  dismissal  by  informing  Mademoiselle  Thuil- 
lier  that  Celeste  would  have  for  a  sister-in-law  the 
notorious  Mariette,  of  the  Opera. 

"She's  out  of  it,"  said  Colleville,  alluding  to  his 
wife,  "and  we'd  better  not  go  back  again." 

"Besides,  Monsieur  Godeschal's  too  old  for 
Celeste,"  said  Brigitte. 

"And  shouldn't  we  let  her  marry  to  her  taste," 
suggested  Madame  Thuillier,  timidly,  "and  be 
happy?" 

The  poor  woman  had  discovered  in  Felix  Phel- 
lion's  heart  a  true  love  for  Celeste ;  love  such  as  a 
woman  trodden  under  foot  by  Brigitte  and  crushed 
by  the  indifference  of  her  husband,  who  cared  less 
for  his  wife  than  for  a  servant,  had  dreamed  that 
love  should  be;  bold  in  the  heart,  timid  without; 
sure  of  itself,  but  shrinking;  concealed  from  all  eyes, 
but  blooming  in  solitude.  At  twenty-three  years, 
Felix  Phellion  was  a  gentle-mannered,  innocent 
youth,  like  all  students  who  cultivate  science  for 
science's  sake.  He  had  been  piously  brought  up  by 
his  father,  who  took  everything  seriously  and  set 
before  him  none  but  good  examples,  accompanying 
them  with  trite  maxims.  He  was  a  young  man  of 
medium  height,  with  light  chestnut  hair,  gray  eyes, 


68  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

skin  covered  with  red  blotches;  he  was  endowed 
with  a  musical  voice,  and  dignified  bearing;  he  was 
a  good  deal  of  a  dreamer,  made  but  few  gestures, 
said  nothing  that  was  not  worth  saying,  never  con- 
tradicted anybody,  and  was,  above  all  things,  inca- 
pable of  a  sordid  thought,  or  of  scheming  in  his  own 
interest 

"That's  how  I'd  have  liked  my  husband  to  be!" 
Madame  Thuillier  would  often  say  to  herself. 

On  a  certain  evening  in  the  month  of  February, 
1840,  the  various  individuals  whose  silhouettes  have 
been  roughly  drawn  were  assembled  in  the  Thuillier 
salon.  It  was  near  the  end  of  the  month.  Barbet 
and  Metivier,  having  to  request  a  loan  of  thirty 
thousand  francs  each  from  Mademoiselle  Brigitte, 
were  playing  whist  with  Monsieur  Minard  and 
Phellion.  At  another  table  were  Julien,  the  advo- 
cate,— a  sobriquet  bestowed  upon  the  younger 
Minard  by  Colleville, — Madame  Colleville,  Monsieur 
Barniol  and  Madame  Phellion.  A  game  of  bouillotte 
at  five  sous  the  chip  furnished  entertainment  to 
Madame  Minard,  who  knew  no  other  game,  Colle- 
ville, old  PereSaillard  and  Bandoze,  his  son-in-law; 
Laudigeois  and  Dutocq  were  waiting  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  join  the  game.  Mesdames  Falleix,  Bau- 
doyer,  Barniol,  and  Mademoiselle  Minard  were 
playing  boston,  and  Celeste  was  sitting  beside  Pru- 
dence Minard.  Young  Phellion  was  listening  to 
Madame  Thuillier  and  looking  at  Celeste. 

At  the  other  side  of  the  fireplace  the  Queen  Eliza- 
beth of  the  family  sat  enthroned  upon  a  couch,  as 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  69 

simply  dressed  as  she  had  been  for  thirty  years  past, 
for  no  degree  of  prosperity  could  have  induced  her 
to  change  her  habits.  Her  gray  hairs  were  covered 
by  a  black  gauze  cap  adorned  with  Charles  X.  gera- 
niums; her  currant-colored  woolen  dress  with 
shirred  waist  cost  fifteen  francs;  her  embroidered 
fichu  was  worth  six  francs  and  only  partially  con- 
cealed the  deep  furrow  between  the  two  muscles 
that  connect  the  brain  with  the  spinal  column. 
Monvel,  playing  Augustus  in  his  old  age,  never 
exhibited  a  more  gaunt  profile  than  this  autocrat's 
as  she  sat  knitting  socks  for  her  brother.  In  front 
of  the  fireplace  stood  Thuillier,  ready  to  greet  any 
new  arrival,  and  beside  him  was  a  youth  whose 
entrance  caused  a  great  sensation,  when  the  con- 
cierge, who  always  donned  his  best  coat  to  attend 
the  guests  on  Sundays,  announced  Monsieur  Olivier 
Vinet 

A  confidential  communication  from  Cardot  to  the 
famous  procureur-general,  the  young  magistrate's 
father,  was  the  occasion  of  this  visit.  Olivier  Vinet 
had  recently  gone  from  the  tribunal  of  Arcis-sur- 
Aube  to  the  tribunal  of  the  Seine  as  deputy  king's 
attorney.  Cardot  had  had  Thuillier  to  dine  at  his 
house  with  the  procureur-general,  who  seemed  to  be 
in  a  fair  way  to  become  Minister  of  Justice,  and 
with  his  son.  Cardot  estimated  the  various  sums 
which  would  eventually  fall  to  Celeste  at  no  less 
than  seven  hundred  thousand  trancs  at  that  moment 
Vinet  junior  seemed  delighted  to  be  allowed  to  visit 
the  Thuilliers  on  Sundays.  In  these  days  large 


70  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

dowries  lead  men  to  do  the  most  idiotic  things  with- 
out shame. 

Ten  minutes  later  another  young  man  who  had 
been  talking  with  Thuillier  before  the  deputy's  arri- 
val, raised  his  voice  as  he  waxed  warm  in  a  politi- 
cal discussion,  and  forced  the  magistrate  to  follow 
his  example  because  of  the  animated  tone  the  dis- 
cussion thereupon  assumed.  It  bore  upon  the  vote 
by  which  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  overthrew  the 
ministry  of  May  i2th,  refusing  the  allowance 
demanded  for  the  Due  de  Nemours. 

"Assuredly,"  the  young  man  was  saying,  "I  am 
far  from  agreeing  with  those  who  support  the 
dynasty,  and  I  am  far  from  approving  the  acces- 
\/  sion  to  power  of  the  bourgeoisie.  The  bour- 
geoisie has  no  more  right  than  the  aristocracy 
formerly  had  to  claim  to  be  the  whole  state.  But 
still  the  French  bourgeoisie  took  it  upon  itself 
to  set  up  a  new  dynasty,  a  monarchy  of  its  own, 
and  this  is  the  way  it  treats  it !  When  the  people 
allowed  Napoleon  to  rise  to  supreme  power,  he  cre- 
ated a  splendid,  monumental  fabric;  he  was  proud 
of  his  grandeur,  and  he  nobly  gave  his  blood  and  the 
sweat  of  his  brow  in  constructing  the  edifice  of  the 
Empire.  Between  the  magnificence  of  the  aristo- 
cratic throne  and  the  imperial  purple,  between  the 
nobility  and  the  people,  the  bourgeoisie  makes  a 
paltry  show;  it  would  pull  power  down  to  its 
level,  instead  of  trying  to  rise  to  it.  The  candle- 
end  economy  it  practices  in  its  counting-rooms 
it  thinks  fit  to  practice  when  dealing  with  princes. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  71 

A  thing  that  is  praiseworthy  in  its  warehouses  is 
a  mistake  and  crime  in  the  government.  I  should 
have  been  glad  of  many  changes  in  the  people's  in- 
terest, but  I  wouldn't  have  cut  down  the  new  Civil 
List  ten  millions.  Upon  becoming  almost  the  only 
power  in  France  the  bourgeoisie  ought  to  give  us 
what  the  people  delight  in,  splendor  without  parade, 
grandeur  without  class  distinctions." 

Olivier  Vinet's  father  was  at  this  time  on  bad 
terms  with  the  ruling  powers;  the  robe  of  Keeper  of 
the  Seals,  which  was  his  dream,  took  a  long  while 
to  fall  into  his  hands.  So  the  young  deputy  hardly 
knew  how  to  reply,  and  thought  he  would  do  well 
by  agreeing  with  the  speaker  on  one  branch  of  the 
question. 

"You  are  right,  Monsieur,"  said  Olivier.  "But 
the  bourgeoisie  has  certain  duties  to  France  to  fulfil, 
before  parading  its  grandeur.  The  splendor  of 
which  you  speak  should  be  postponed  to  urgent 
duties.  The  thing  that  seems  to  you  so  blame- 
worthy was  a  necessity  of  the  moment.  The  Cham- 
ber is  very  far  from  having  its  legitimate  share  in 
the  government;  the  ministers  are  less  devoted  to 
France  than  to  the  crown,  and  the  Parliament  has 
determined  that  the  ministry  shall  have,  as  in  Eng- 
land, a  power  of  its  own  and  not  a  borrowed  power. 
When  the  day  comes  that  the  ministry  acts  on  its 
own  responsibility,  and  represents  the  Chamber  in 
the  executive  arm  of  the  government,  as  the  Cham- 
ber represents  the  country,  Parliament  will  be 
ready  to  deal  very  liberally  with  the  crown.  That 


72  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

is  the  question, — I  state  it  without  expressing  any 
opinion,  for  the  duties  of  my  office  imply  a  sort  of 
fealty  to  the  crown,  politically  speaking." 

"Aside  from  the  political  question,"  replied  the 
young  man,  whose  tone  and  accent  pointed  him  out 
as  a  child  of  Provence,  "it  is  true  none  the  less  that 
the  bourgeoisie  misunderstands  its  mission;  we  see 
procureur's-general,  first  presidents  and  peers  of 
France  riding  in  omnibuses,  judges  who  live  on 
their  salaries,  prefects  without  means,  ministers  in 
debt;  whereas  the  bourgeoisie,  when  it  takes  pos- 
session of  these  places,  should  respect  them  as  the 
aristocracy  always  respected  them,  and,  instead  of 
devoting  all  its  energies  to  making  fortunes,  as 
all  the  scandalous  prosecutions  show  has  been 
done,  it  ought  to  give  attention  to  spending  the 
revenues — " 

"Who  is  this  young  fellow?"  thought  Olivier 
Vinet,  on  hearing  him;  "is  he  a  relation?  Cardot 
would  have  done  well  to  come  here  with  me  the  first 
time." 

"Who  is  that  little  fellow?"  Minard  inquired  of 
Monsieur  Barbet;  "I've  seen  him  here  several 
times." 

"He's  a  tenant,"  replied  Metivier,  as  he  dealt  the 
cards. 

"A  lawyer,"  said  Barbet,  in  an  undertone;  "he 
lives  in  a  small  suite  on  the  third-floor  front — oh! 
he's  no  great  shakes,  and  he  has  nothing." 

"What  is  that  young  man's  name?"  said  Olivier 
Vinet  to  Monsieur  Thuillier. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  73 

"Theodose  de  la  Peyrade;  he's  a  lawyer,"  Thuil- 
lier  replied  in  the  deputy-attorney's  ear. 

At  that  moment  the  women,  as  well  as  the  men, 
were  looking  at  the  two  youths,  and  Madame  Minard 
could  not  help  saying  to  Colleville: 

"That's  a  fine-looking  young  fellow." 

"I  have  made  an  anagram  for  him, "  said  Celeste's 
father;  "his  full  name,  Charles-Marie-Theodose  de 
la  Peyrade,  makes  this  prophetic  sentence:  Eh! 
Monsieur  pay  era,  de  la  dot,  des  oies  et  le  char. — Eh! 
monsieur  will  pay  for  the  dowry  with  geese  and  a 
wagon. — So,  my  dear  Mamma  Minard,  don't  think 
of  giving  him  your  daughter." 

"They  say  that  young  man's  better-looking  than 
my  son,"  said  Madame  Phellion  to  Madame  Colle- 
ville; "what  do  you  think?" 

"Why,  as  far  as  physique  is  concerned,"  was  the 
reply,  "a  woman  might  hesitate  before  making  her 
choice." 

At  this  juncture  young  Vinet,  as  he  looked  over  the 
salon  filled  with  petty  bourgeois,  thought  it  would 
be  a  shrewd  move  on  his  part  to  extol  the  bour- 
geoisie, so  he  chimed  in  with  the  Provencal  advocate, 
saying  that  those  people  who  were  honored  with  the 
confidence  of  the  government  ought  to  imitate  the 
king,  whose  magnificence  far  surpassed  that  of  the 
old  court ;  and  that  to  save  money  out  of  an  official 
salary  was  the  merest  folly.  Indeed,  could  it  be  done, 
especially  in  Paris,  where  the  cost  of  living  had 
increased  threefold,  where  a  magistrate's  apartment, 
for  instance,  cost  three  thousand  francs  a  year  ? — 


74  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"My  father,"  said  he,  in  conclusion,  "gives  me  a 
thousand  crowns  a  year,  and  with  my  salary  in 
addition  I  can  hardly  live  in  a  style  befitting  my 
rank." 

When  the  deputy  turned  into  this  boggy  road, 
the  Provencal,  who  had  skilfully  led  him  there,  ex- 
changed a  glance,  undetected  by  anybody,  with 
Dutocq,  who  was  still  waiting  to  take  his  place  at 
the  bouillotte  table. 

"And  they  need  so  many  places,"  said  the  clerk, 
"that  they  talk  of  appointing  two  justices  of  the 
peace  in  each  arrondissement,  so  that  they'll  have 
twelve  more  clerkships  to  dispose  of. — As  if  they 
could  interfere  with  our  vested  rights  in  these  places, 
for  which  we  had  to  pay  such  an  exorbitant  price!" 

"1  haven't  yet  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  you  at 
the  Palace,"  said  the  deputy  to  Monsieur  de  la 
Peyrade. 

"I  am  the  poor  man's  advocate,  and  I  plead  cases 
only  before  the  justice  of  the  peace,"  replied  the 
Provencal. 

As  she  listened  to  the  young  magistrate's  theory 
as  to  the  necessity  of  spending  one's  income,  Made- 
moiselle Thuillier  assumed  a  prim  expression,  the 
meaning  of  which  was  well  known  both  to  the 
young  Provencal  and  Dutocq.  Young  Vinet  took 
his  leave  with  Minard  and  Julien,  the  advocate,  so 
that  de  la  Peyrade  and  Dutocq  remained  masters 
of  the  battle-field  in  front  of  the  fireplace. 

"The  upper  middle-class,"  said  Dutocq  to  Thuil- 
lier, "will  do  just  as  the  aristocracy  used  to  do. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  75 

The  nobility  used  to  look  for  rich  wives  to  fertilize 
their  estates,  our  parvenus  of  to-day  are  after  big 
dots  to  put  hay  in  their  mows." 

"That's  what  Monsieur  Thuillier  was  saying  this 
morning,"  replied  the  Provencal,  boldly. 

"The  father,"  replied  Dutocq,  "married  a  Made- 
moiselle de  Chargeboeuf,  so  he  has  adopted  the 
opinions  of  the  nobility;  he  must  have  a  fortune  at 
any  price,  his  wife  has  a  royal  train. 

"Bah!"  said  Thuillier,  in  whom  the  jealousy  of 
one  bourgeois  for  another  was  at  once  aroused; 
"take  their  places  away  and  those  fellows  will  fall 
back  where  they  came  from." — 

Mademoiselle  Thuillier  began  to  knit  at  as  furious 
a  pace  as  if  her  arms  were  working  by  steam. 

"Here's  your  chance,  Monsieur  Dutocq,"  said 
Madame  Minard,  rising  from  the  bouillotte  table. 
"My  feet  are  cold,"  she  added,  drawing  near  the 
fire,  where  the  gold  ornaments  on  her  turban  pro- 
duced the  effect  of  fireworks  in  the  light  shed  by 
the  candles  of  the  Aurora,  which  was  making  fruit- 
less efforts  to  illuminate  the  vast  salon. 

"He's  nothing  but  St  John  fire,  that  deputy  fel- 
low !"  said  Madame  Minard,  glancing  at  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier. 

"St  John  fire,  do  you  say?"  said  the  Provencal; 
"that's  very  clever,  Madame — " 

"Oh!  we  have  long  been  accustomed  to  that  sort 
of  thing  from  Madame,"  said  Beau  Thuillier. 

Madame  Colleville  was  scrutinizing  the  young 
Provencal,  and  comparing  him  with  young  Phellion, 


76  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

who  was  talking  with  Celeste,  paying  no  heed  to 
what  was  taking  place  around  them.  This  is  cer- 
tainly the  moment  to  attempt  a  description  of  the 
strange  personage,  who  was  destined  to  play  so 
prominent  a  part  in  the  lives  of  the  Thuilliers,  and 
who  well  deserves  to  be  called  a  great  artist 


There  is  in  Provence,  especially  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Avignon,  a  race  of  men,  with  fair  or  chest- 
nut hair,  smooth  complexion,  and  soft  eyes,  whose 
expression  is  rather  insipid,  calm,  or  languishing, 
than  keen,  ardent,  penetrating,  as  eyes  are  generally 
among  the  Southrons.  Let  us  remark,  in  passing, 
that  among  the  Corsicans,  who  are  quick  to  lose 
their  heads  and  prone  to  dangerous  fits  of  anger, 
we  often  meet  with  men  of  blond  type,  and  of  ap- 
parently tranquil  disposition.  These  pale,  rather 
stout  creatures,  with  restless  green  or  blue  eyes,  are 
the  worst  species  of  Provengaux,  and  Charles-Marie- 
Theodose  de  la  Peyrade  was  an  excellent  specimen 
of  the  class,  whose  constitutions  would  repay  a  care- 
ful examination  on  the  part  of  the  medical  profession 
and  of  philosophical  physiologists.  There  seems  to 
be  a  sort  of  bile  of  bitter  humor  constantly  at  work 
in  them,  which  goes  to  their  head  and  makes  them 
capable  of  the  most  savage  deeds,  however  cold  they 
may  be  in  appearance.  Being  the  result  of  an  inter- 
nal commotion,  this  sullen  violence  is  irreconcilable 
with  their  almost  lymphatic  exterior,  and  with  the 
tranquillity  of  their  benign  glance. 

Born  in  the  suburbs  of  Avignon,  the  young  Pro- 

ven^al  whose  name  we  have  just  mentioned  was  of 

medium  stature,  well-proportioned,  but  almost  stout; 

his  flesh  had  a  sort  of  lifeless  appearance, — it  was 

(77) 


78  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

neither  livid  nor  dead-white  nor  ruddy,  but  gelati- 
nous; that  word  alone  will  convey  any  idea  of  the 
flabby,  colorless  envelope  beneath  which  lay  hidden 
a  mass  of  nerves,  less  aptly  described  as  strong  and 
vigorous  than  as  capable  of  a  most  determined  resist- 
ance at  critical  moments.  His  eyes,  of  a  pale,  cold 
blue,  ordinarily  expressed  a  sort  of  misleading  mel- 
ancholy, which  was  likely  to  possess  a  great  charm 
for  women.  His  well-shaped  brow  did  not  lack  dis- 
tinction and  harmonized  well  with  his  fine,  thin, 
light  chestnut  hair,  which  curled  naturally,  but 
slightly,  at  the  ends.  His  nose  was  an  exact  copy 
of  a  hunting  dog's,  flat,  cleft  at  the  end,  inquisitive, 
prying,  intelligent,  and  always  to  the  wind;  it  had 
an  expression  of  satire  and  mockery,  rather  than 
good-fellowship;  but  these  two  aspects  of  his  char- 
acter were  not  always  visible ;  it  was  only  when  the 
young  man,  ceasing  to  keep  watch  upon  himself, 
flew  into  a  rage,  that  he  had  the  power  of  ejecting 
the  sarcasm  and  wit  which  increased  tenfold  the  in- 
fernal bitterness  of  his  jests.  His  mouth,  which 
described  a  graceful  curve  between  lips  of  the  color 
of  a  pomegranate,  seemed  like  the  mouth  of  a  mar- 
velous organ,  almost  soft  in  its  middle  tones,  to 
which  Theodose  generally  confined  himself,  but,  in 
the  upper  register,  vibrating  in  one's  ears  like  the 
sound  of  a  gong.  This  falsetto  was  the  voice  of  his 
nerves  and  his  temper.  His  face,  which  by  virtue 
of  his  perfect  command  over  his  features  was 
always  devoid  of  expression,  was  oval  in  shape. 
His  manners,  which  were  entirely  in  harmony  with 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  79 

the  priest-like  tranquillity  of  his  face,  were  very 
reserved  and  proper;  but  there  was  a  certain  plia- 
bility and  system  in  his  peculiarities;  while  they 
never  could  be  characterized  as  fawning,  they  did 
not  lack  a  certain  fascination,  which,  however, 
could  not  be  explained  after  it  had  disappeared. 
The  power  of  fascination,  when  it  springs  from  the 
heart,  leaves  deep  traces ;  that  which  is  only  a  pro- 
duct of  art,  as  eloquence  is,  achieves  only  ephemeral 
triumphs ;  it  obtains  its  effects  at  any  cost  But 
how  many  philosophers  are  there  in  the  world  qual- 
ified to  make  the  comparison?  It  almost  always 
happens,  to  use  a  slang  expression,  that  the  trick  is 
done  before  ordinary  people  can  see  through  it. 

Everything  about  this  young  man  of  twenty- 
seven  years  was  in  harmony  with  his  real  character ; 
he  followed  his  vocation  by  cultivating  philanthropy, 
the  only  expression  which  can  be  used  to  explain 
the  profession  of  a  philanthropist.  Theodose  loved 
the  people,  but  he  made  a  sharp  distinction  in  his 
love  of  mankind.  Just  as  a  horticulturist  devotes 
himself  to  roses,  or  dahlias,  or  violets,  or  geraniums, 
and  pays  no  attention  to  the  varieties  he  has  not 
selected  for  his  specialty,  this  young  La  Rochefou- 
cauld-Liancourt  gave  himself  to  the  workman,  the 
proletariat,  the  poverty-stricken  wretches  of  the 
Faubourgs  Saint- Jacques  and  Saint-Marceau.  The 
strong  man,  the  genius  in  distress,  the  shrinking 
poor  of  the  bourgeois  class  he  cast  out  from  the 
bosom  of  charity.  In  all  maniacs  the  heart  resem- 
bles one  of  the  boxes  with  compartments  in  which 


80  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

different  kinds  of  sweetmeats  are  placed ;  the  suum 
cuique  tribuere  is  their  device,  they  measure  out 
its  dose  to  every  duty. 

There  are  philanthropists  who  have  pity  only  for 
the  errors  of  the  condemned.  Vanity  certainly 
forms  the  basis  of  philanthropy;  but  in  the  case  of 
the  Provencal  it  was  self-interest,  a  role  deliber- 
ately assumed,  the  part  of  a  liberal  and  democratic 
hypocrite  played  with  a  perfection  which  no  actor 
could  ever  attain.  He  did  not  attack  the  rich,  he 
was  content  not  to  understand  them ;  he  took  them 
for  granted ;  every  man,  in  his  view,  was  entitled 
to  enjoy  the  fruit  of  his  own  labors;  he  had  been, 
he  said,  a  fervent  disciple  of  Saint-Simon,  but  that 
fault  was  to  be  attributed  to  his  extreme  youth; 
modern  society  could  have  no  other  basis  than 
heredity.  An  ardent  Catholic,  like  all  natives  of 
the  Comtat,  he  went  to  mass  very  early  in  the 
morning,  and  concealed  his  piety.  Like  almost  all 
philanthropists  he  was  extremely  stingy,  and  gave 
to  the  poor  only  his  time,  advice  and  eloquence, 
and  the  money  he  extorted  from  the  rich  for  them. 
His  costume  consisted  of  boots,  and  a  black  broad- 
cloth suit  worn  until  the  seams  turned  white.  Nature 
had  done  much  for  Theodose  in  not  endowing  him 
with  that  rare,  virile  southern  beauty  which  creates 
in  others  cravings  of  the  imagination  which  it  is 
more  than  difficult  for  a  man  to  gratify.  As  it  cost 
him  but  little  to  make  himself  agreeable,  he  was  a 
pleasant  fellow  or  a  very  ordinary  one,  as  he  chose, 
when  it  suited  him.  Never  since  his  admission 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  8 1 

to  the  Thuillier  circle  had  he  dared,  as  on  the  even- 
ing in  question,  to  raise  his  voice  and  deliver  him- 
self so  consequentially  as  he  had  just  ventured  to  do 
with  Olivier  Vinet;  but  it  may  well  be  that  Theo- 
dose  de  la  Peyrade  was  not  sorry  to  make  an  effort 
to  emerge  from  the  shadow  in  which  he  had  thus  far 
remained ;  then,  too,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  get 
rid  of  the  young  magistrate  just  as  the  Minards  had 
formerly  demolished  the  hopes  of  Godeschal,  the 
advocate.  Like  all  superior  minds,  for  he  did  not 
lack  elements  of  superiority,  the  deputy  had  not 
lowered  his  glances  to  the  level  at  which  the  threads 
of  these  bourgeois  spider-webs  become  visible,  and 
he  had  plunged  head  first,  like  an  unwary  fly,  into 
the  almost  invisible  trap  to  which  Theodose  had 
lured  him  by  a  stratagem  which  cleverer  men  than 
Olivier  might  not  have  suspected. 

To  complete  the  portrait  of  the  poor  man's  lawyer 
it  may  not  be  unprofitable  to  tell  the  circumstances 
of  his  first  appearance  in  the  Thuillier  household. 

Theodose  had  come  to  the  house  late  in  the  year 
1837;  having  then  had  his  degree  in  law  for  five 
years,  he  had  gone  through  the  necessary  course  at 
Paris,  preparatory  to  becoming  an  advocate;  but 
unknown  circumstances,  as  to  which  he  held  his 
tongue,  prevented  him  from  entering  his  name  on 
the  roll  of  advocates  and  he  was  still  on  probation. 
But  when  he  was  once  installed  in  the  little  room  on 
the  third  floor,  with  the  furniture  absolutely  required 
for  the  practice  of  his  noble  profession — for  the  order 
of  advocates  will  not  admit  a  new  member  unless 
6 


82  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

he  has  a  suitable  office  and  library,  and  it  takes  meas- 
ures to  satisfy  itself  on  both  points — Theodose  de  la 
Peyrade  became  an  advocate  of  the  royal  court  at 
Paris. 

The  whole  of  the  year  1838  was  occupied  in  bring- 
ing about  that  change  in  his  situation,  and  he  led  a 
most  regular  life.  He  studied  at  home  in  the 
morning  until  the  dinner-hour,  and  went  sometimes 
to  the  Palais  when  an  important  case  was  on. 
Having  formed  an  acquaintance  with  Dutocq,  with 
great  difficulty,  according  to  the  latter,  he  rendered 
the  service  of  pleading  their  cases  before  the  tribunal, 
to  some  few  poor  fellows  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Jacques  whom  the  justice's  clerk  recommended  to 
his  charity;  he  brought  their  cases  before  the 
advocates,  who,  in  accordance  with  the  statutes  of 
their  order,  attend  in  turn  to  the  interests  of  poor 
litigants,  and,  as  he  took  none  but  perfectly  sure 
cases  he  won  them  all.  Having  business  relations 
with  some  large  offices,  he  became  known  to  the  bar 
by  these  praiseworthy  acts,  and  these  circumstances 
led  in  the  first  place  to  his  admission  with  some 
'eclat  to  the  conference  of  advocates  on  probation, 
and  then  to  his  name  being  inscribed  on  the  roll  of 
the  order.  Thenceforth  he  was  the  poor  man's  ad- 
vocate before  the  justice  of  the  peace,  and  he  con- 
tinued to  be  the  protector  of  the  common  people. 
Theodose's  clients  freery  expressed  their  gratitude 
and  their  admiration  among  the  concierges,  despite 
the  injunctions  of  the  young  advocate,  and  many  of 
his  kind  offices  were  soon  known  to  the  landlords. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  83 

Overjoyed  to  have  so  commendable  and  so  charita- 
ble a  person  for  their  tenant,  the  Thuilliers  deter- 
mined to  lure  him  to  their  salon  and  questioned 
Dutocq  on  the  subject.  The  clerk  talked  as  jealous 
men  talk,  and,  while  doing  full  justice  to  the  young 
man's  talents,  said  that  his  avarice  was  something 
remarkable,  although  it  might  be  due  to  his  poverty. 

"I  have  gleaned  some  information  about  his 
early  days,"  said  he.  "He  belongs  to  the  old  de  la 
Peyrade  family  of  the  Comtat  d'Avignon;  he  came 
here  in  the  latter  part  of  1829,  looking  after  an  uncle 
who  was  supposed  to  be  quite  wealthy;  he  finally 
found  out  where  he  lived  just  three  days  after  his 
death,  and  the  household  furniture  of  the  defunct 
just  paid  the  expenses  of  his  funeral  and  his  debts. 
A  friend  of  this  useless  uncle  sent  our  fortune- 
hunter  a  hundred  louis  on  the  condition  that  he  should 
study  law  and  follow  a  legal  career ;  these  hundred 
louis  paid  his  expenses  for  three  years  in  Paris, 
where  he  lived  like  an  anchorite;  but  as  he  was 
never  able  to  see  or  even  to  find  out  his  unknown 
patron  the  poor  student  was  in  great  distress  in 
1833. 

"He  then  went  into  politics  and  literature,  as  all 
law-students  do,  and  kept  himself  out  of  actual  want 
for  some  time;  he  couldn't  hope  for  anything  from 
his  family;  his  father,  the  youngest  brother  of  the 
deceased  uncle  on  Rue  des  Moineaux,  had  a  flock  of 
eleven  children  who  lived  on  a  small  estate  called 
Canquoelles. 

"At  last  he  joined  a  ministerial  journal  managed 


84  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

by  the  famous  Cerizet,  who  acquired  such  great 
celebrity  on  account  of  the  persecution  he  was  sub- 
jected to  under  the  Restoration  for  his  attachment  to 
the  liberals,  and  whom  the  men  of  the  New  Left 
have  never  forgiven  for  becoming  a  supporter  of  the 
ministry.  As  the  ruling  powers  of  to-day  take  but 
little  trouble  to  defend  their  most  devoted  adherents, 
witness  the  Gisquet  affair,  the  republicans  suc- 
ceeded at  last  in  ruining  Cerizet  I  say  this  to 
explain  to  you  how  it  happens  that  Cerizet  is  now  a 
copyist  in  my  office. 

"Well,  in  the  days  when  he  was  flourishing  as 
the  manager  of  a  newspaper  set  up  by  the  Perier 
ministry  to  repel  the  attacks  of  incendiary  journals 
like  the  Tribune  and  others  of  that  stamp,  Cerizet, 
who  is  a  good  sort  of  fellow  after  all,  but  is  a 
little  too  fond  of  wine,  women  and  song,  was  very 
useful  to  Theodose,  who  was  his  political  editor; 
and  had  it  not  been  for  the  death  of  Casimir  Perier 
the  youngster  would  have  been  appointed  deputy 
king's  attorney  for  Paris.  In  1834  and  1835  he 
was  down  again,  despite  his  talent,  for  his  collab- 
oration in  the  ministerial  journal  injured  him.  'If 
it  had  not  been  for  my  religious  principles,'  he  said 
to  me  at  that  time,  'I  should  have  thrown  myself 
into  the  Seine.'  It  seems,  however,  that  his  uncle's 
friend  found  him  out  in  his  misery,  for  he  received 
the  wherewithal  to  defray  the  necessary  expenses 
of  becoming  an  advocate;  but  he  still  is  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  name  and  abode  of  this  mysterious 
patron.  After  all,  his  economy  is  excusable  under 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  85 

the  circumstances,  and  he  must  have  a  deal  of 
strength  in  his  character  to  refuse  what  the  poor 
devils  offer  him  when  he  wins  their  cases  for  them. 
It's  a  shameful  thing  to  see  people  speculating  on  the 
impossibility  of  the  poor  wretches  paying  in  advance 
the  costs  of  the  unjust  suits  they  bring  against 
them.  Oh!  it  will  come  at  last;  I  sha'n't  be  sur- 
prised to  see  that  boy  reach  a  very  brilliant  posi- 
tion; he's  persistent  and  honest  and  brave!  He 
studies  and  digs  away  at  his  work." 

Notwithstanding  the  favorable  reception  accorded 
him,  de  la  Peyrade  wore  a  very  grave  face  in  the 
Thuillier  salon.  But  when  they  scolded  him  for  his 
reserve  he  appeared  more  frequently  and  ended  by 
going  there  every  Sunday;  he  was  invited  to  all  the 
dinner-parties,  and  he  became  so  intimate  in  the 
family  that  if  he  came  to  the  house  to  speak  to 
Thuillier  about  four  o'clock,  they  would  force  him 
to  sit  down  and  take  pot-luck  with  them. 

"Then  we  can  be  sure  that  the  poor  fellow  will 
have  a  good  dinner,"  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  would 
say. 

A  social  phenomenon,  which  has  certainly  been 
remarked,  but  which  has  never  as  yet  been  formu- 
lated, published  if  you  choose,  although  it  well 
deserves  to  be,  is  the  return  of  the  customs,  manners 
and  modes  of  thought  of  their  earlier  days,  in  the 
case  of  some  people  who,  between  youth  and  old 
age,  have  risen  above  the  condition  of  life  in  which 
they  were  born.  Thus,  morally  speaking,  Thuillier 
had  become  the  concierge's  son  once  more;  he 


86  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

repeated  some  of  his  father's  jokes,  and  ended  by 
allowing  a  little  of  the  mire  of  his  early  life  to 
appear  on  the  surface,  in  his  declining  days. 

Five  or  six  times  a  month,  when  the  meat  soup 
was  particularly  good,  he  would  say,  as  if  it  were 
an  entirely  novel  proposition,  laying  his  spoon  in 
his  empty  place:  "That's  better  than  a  kick  on 
the  shins!"  When  he  heard  this  jocose  sally  for 
the  first  time,  Theodose,  who  was  not  familiar  with 
it,  lost  his  gravity,  and  laughed  so  heartily  that 
Thuillier's,  Beau  Thuillier's,  vanity  was  tickled  as 
it  never  had  been  before.  After  that  Theodose 
always  greeted  that  particular  joke  with  a  slight 
appreciative  smile.  This  trifling  detail  will  account 
for  the  fact  that,  on  the  morning  of  the  same  day 
when  Theodose  had  his  skirmish  with  the  young 
deputy,  he  made  free  to  say  to  Thuillier,  as  they 
were  walking  in  the  garden  to  see  the  effect  of  the 
frost : 

"You  have  much  more  mind  than  you  think!" 

And  received  this  reply : 

"In  any  other  career,  my  dear  Theodose,  I  should 
have  risen  very  high,  but  the  fall  of  the  Emperor 
broke  my  neck." 

"There's  time  yet, "  said  the  young  advocate.  "In 
the  first  place,  tell  me  what  that  mountebank  of  a 
Colleville  ever  did  to  get  the  Cross?" 

With  that  question  Maitre  de  la  Peyrade  put  his 
finger  on  the  wound  that  Thuillier  concealed  from 
every  eye,  so  that  not  even  his  sister  suspected  it; 
but  the  younger  man,  who  took  great  interest  in 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  87 

studying  the  characters  of  all  these  good  bourgeois, 
had  guessed  at  the  secret  jealousy  which  was  gnaw- 
ing at  the  heart  of  the  ex-deputy-chief. 

"If  you,  with  all  your  experience,  will  do  me  the 
honor  to  follow  my  advice,"  added  the  philanthro- 
pist, "and  above  all  things  never  mention  our 
agreement  to  anybody,  not  even  your  good  sister, 
unless  I  consent,  I  will  undertake  to  procure  a 
decoration  for  you  with  the  approval  of  the  whole 
quarter." 

"Oh!  if  we  should  succeed,"  cried  Thuillier, 
"you  don't  know  what  I  would  be  to  you!" — 

This  explains  why  Thuillier  bridled  up  so,  a 
moment  before,  when  Theodose  had  the  audacity  to 
loan  him  opinions. 

In  the  arts,  and  perhaps  Moliere  has  raised  hypoc- 
risy to  the  level  of  an  art,  by  placing  Tartuffe  for- 
ever among  actors,  there  exists  a  perfection,  beneath 
which  comes  mere  talent,  and  which  genius  alone 
attains.  There  is  so  little  difference  between  the 
work  of  genius  and  the  work  of  talent,  that  men  of 
genius  alone  can  realize  the  distance  that  separates 
Raphael  from  Correggio,  Titian  from  Rubens.  More 
than  that,  the  ordinary  observer  is  completely  de- 
ceived therein.  The  stamp  of  genius  is  a  certain 
appearance  of  facility.  In  a  word,  its  work  should 
appear  no  more  than  ordinary  at  first  glance,  it  is 
always  so  true  to  nature  even  in  the  most  lofty 
subjects. 

Many  peasant  women  hold  their  children  as  the 
celebrated  Dresden  Madonna  holds  her  child.  The 


88  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

acme  of  art,  in  a  man  of  Theodose's  strength  of 
character,  is  so  to  act  that  it  will  be  said  of  him 
later:  "Anybody  might  have  been  taken  in  by 
him!"  Now,  he  saw  that  a  spirit  of  contradiction 
was  beginning  to  crop  out  in  the  Thuillier  salon ;  he 
detected  in  Colleville  the  keen  afid  critical  nature 
of  the  unsuccessful  artist  The  advocate  knew  that 
he  was  disliked  by  Colleville,  who,  as  the  result  of 
circumstances  not  worth  recording,  was  led  to 
believe  implicitly  in  the  science  of  anagrams.  No 
one  of  his  anagrams  had  ever  failed  to  speak  the 
truth.  They  made  fun  of  him  in  the  department, 
when  upon  being  asked  for  the  anagram  of  poor  Au- 
guste-Jean-Frangois  Minard's  name,  he  produced 
this:  J'amassai  une  si  grande  fortune, — I  amassed 
such  a  great  fortune— but  the  event  justified  the 
anagram  ten  years  later.  Theodose's  anagram  was 
fatal.  His  own  wife's  made  him  tremble,  and  he 
had  never  told  of  it,  for  Flavie  Minard  Colleville 
yielded:  La  vieille  C — ,  nom  fletri,  vole. — Old  C — , 
tarnished  name,  steals. 

Several  times  prior  to  the  evening  in  question 
Theodose  had  made  advances  to  the  jovial  mayor's 
secretary,  and  felt  distinctly  repelled  by  a  frigid 
demeanor  most  unnatural  in  so  talkative  a  person. 
When  the  game  of  bouillotte  was  at  an  end  Colle- 
ville led  Thuillier  into  a  window  recess,  and  said 
to  him : 

"You're  letting  that  advocate  fellow  get  too  much 
of  a  footing  here;  he  bore  the  brunt  of  the  conver- 
sation to-night" 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  89 

"Thanks,  my  friend,  a  man  warned  is  as  good  as 
two,"  replied  Thuillier,  inwardly  sneering  at  Colle- 
ville. 

Theodose,  who  was  talking  with  Madame  Colle- 
ville  at  the  moment,  had  his  eyes  on  the  two  friends, 
and  with  the  same  prescience  that  enables  women 
to  divine  when  people  are  talking  about  them  and 
what  they  are  saying,  from  one  corner  of  a  salon  to 
another,  he  divined  that  Colleville  was  trying  to 
injure  him  in  the  esteem  of  the  weak  and  asinine 
Thuillier. 

"Madame,"  he  said  in  the  pious  creature's  ear, 
"if  there  is  anyone  here  able  to  appreciate  you  I  am 
the  one.  Seeing  you  here  one  would  say  that  a 
pearl  had  fallen  into  the  mud;  you  are  not  forty-two 
years  old,  for  a  woman  is  only  as  old  as  she  seems 
to  be,  and  many  women  of  thirty  who  are  greatly 
inferior  to  you  would  be  only  too  glad  to  have  your 
figure  and  that  sublime  face  over  which  love  has 
passed  without  ever  filling  the  void  in  your  heart. 
You  have  given  yourself  to  God,  I  know,  and  I  have 
too  much  religious  feeling  to  seek  to  be  anything 
more  than  your  friend ;  but  you  gave  yourself  to  him 
because  you  never  found  any  mortal  worthy  of  you. 
In  short,  you  have  been  loved,  but  you  have  never 
felt  that  you  were  adored;  that  I  have  guessed. — 
But  there's  your  husband,  who  has  never  been  able 
to  place  you  in  the  position  to  which  your  merit 
entitles  you ;  he  hates  me  as  if  he  suspected  me  of 
being  in  love  with  you,  and  prevents  me  from  telling 
you  of  the  means  I  think  I  have  found  of  placing  you 


90  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

in  the  sphere  which  you  were  made  to  adorn. — No, 
madame,"  he  added  aloud,  rising  as  he  spoke,  "the 
Abbe  Gondrin  is  not  to  preach  the  lenten  sermons 
this  year  at  our  humble  church  of  Saint-Jacques  du 
Haut-Pas ;  we  are  to  have  Monsieur  d'Estival,  a  coun- 
tryman of  mine,  who  has  devoted  himself  to  preach- 
ing in  the  interest  of  the  poorer  classes,  and  you 
will  hear  one  of  the  most  impressive  preachers  I 
know ;  a  priest,  whose  exterior  is  far  from  attractive, 
but  what  a  soul !" — 

"My  longing  will  be  gratified,  then, "  said  poor 
Madame  Thuillier,  "for  I  have  never  been  able  to 
understand  the  famous  preachers!" 

A  smile  played  about  the  lips  of  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier  and  of  several  others  in  the  company. 

"They're  thinking  altogether  too  much  of  theo- 
logical demonstrations;  that's  been  my  opinion  for 
a  long  time,"  said  Theodose;  "but  I  never  talk  reli- 
gion, and  except  for  Madame  de  Colleville — " 

"So  they  have  demonstrations  in  theology,  do 
they?"  was  the  innocent  inquiry  of  the  matter-of- 
fact  professor  of  mathematics. 

"1  do  not  think,  Monsieur,"  replied  Theodose, 
looking  Felix  Phellion  in  the  face,  "that  you  asked 
that  question  seriously." 

"Felix,"  said  Phellion  the  elder,  coming  clumsily 
to  his  son's  assistance  as  he  detected  a  pained  ex- 
pression on  Madame  Thuillier's  face,  "Felix  divides 
religion  into  two  categories:  he  looks  at  it  from  a 
human  standpoint  and  from  a  divine  standpoint, 
tradition  and  common-sense." 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  QI 

"What  heresy,  Monsieur!"  rejoined  Theodose; 
"religion  is  indivisible;  it  demands  faith  before  all 
else." 

Pere  Phellion,  transfixed  by  that  sentence,  glanced 
at  his  wife : 

"It's  time,  my  dear — " 

And  he  pointed  to  the  clock. 

"Oh!  Monsieur  Felix,"  whispered  Celeste  to  the 
straightforward  mathematician,  "couldn't  you  be  a 
scholar  and  religious  at  the  same  time,  like  Pascal 
and  Bossuet?" — 

The  Phellions,  when  they  left  the  house,  took  the 
Collevilles  with  them ;  and  soon  nobody  was  left 
but  Dutocq,  Theodose  and  the  Thuilliers. 

Theodose's  flattering  remarks  to  Flavie  savored 
strongly  of  the  commonplace;  but  it  should  be 
observed,  in  fairness  to  this  narrative,  that  the  advo- 
cate kept  himself  on  the  level  of  these  commonplace 
minds;  he  sailed  in  their  waters  and  spoke  their 
language.  His  painter  was  Pierre  Grassou,  not 
Joseph  Bridau ;  his  book  was  Paul  et  Virginie.  The 
greatest  living  poet  in  his  opinion  was  Casimir  Dela- 
vigne;  in  his  eyes  the  mission  of  art  was  utility 
before  all  else.  Parmentier,  the  author  of  The 
Potato,  he  considered  to  be  worth  twenty  Raphaels; 
the  man  in  the  little  blue  cloak  seemed  to  him  a 
Sister  of  Charity.  He  sometimes  remembered  these 
expressions  of  Thuillier's. 

"This  young  Felix  Phellion,"  he  said,  "is  the 
type  of  the  university  man  of  our  day,  the  product 
of  a  science  which  has  put  God  to  flight.  Great 


92  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Heavens !  what  are  we  coming  to  ?  There  is  nothing 
but  religion  that  can  save  France,  for  there's  noth- 
ing but  the  fear  of  hell  to  preserve  us  from  domestic 
theft,  which  is  carried  on  every  day  in  every  house- 
hold, and  eats  into  the  fortunes  of  the  wealthiest. 
You  all  have  a  secret  war  on  hand  in  the  bosom  of 
your  family." 

With  this  shrewd  outburst,  which  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  Brigitte,  he  took  his  leave,  followed 
by  Dutocq,  after  wishing  the  Thuilliers  good- 
night 

"That  young  fellow  is  full  of  expedients!"  re- 
marked Thuillier,  sententiously. 

"Faith,  he  is,"  said  Brigitte,  as  she  put  out  the 
lamps. 

"He's  a  religious  man,"  said  Madame  Thuillier, 
leading  the  way  from  the  salon. 

"Mdsieur,"  said  Phellion  to  Colleville,  when 
they  were  abreast  of  the  School  of  Mines  and  he  had 
made  sure  that  they  were  alone  in  the  street,  "it  is 
my  custom  to  yield  my  opinions  to  those  of  other 
people,  but  I  can't  help  thinking  that  that  young 
lawyer  carries  things  with  a  pretty  high  hand  at  our 
friends,  the  Thuilliers'." 

"My  private  opinion,"  replied  Colleville,  who 
was  walking  with  Phellion  behind  their  wives  and 
Celeste,  all  three  of  whom  were  arm  in  arm,  "is  that 
he's  a  Jesuit,  and  I  don't  like  those  fellows. — The 
best  of  them  is  good  for  nothing.  To  my  mind  the 
Jesuit  means  knavery,  and  knavery  ready  to  cheat; 
they  cheat  for  the  sake  of  cheating, — to  keep  their 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  93 

hand  in,  you  might  say.  That's  my  opinion  and  I 
make  no  bones  about  giving  it" 

"I  understand  you,  Mosieur,"  said  Phellion,  tak- 
ing Colleville's  arm. 

"No,  Monsieur  Phellion,"  chimed  in  Flavie  in  a 
shrill  voice,  "you  don't  understand  Colleville,  but  I 
know  what  he  means,  and  he'll  do  well  to  stop  where 
he  is. — That  sort  of  thing  isn't  to  be  discussed  in 
the  street  at  eleven  at  night,  and  in  a  young  lady's 
presence." 

"You  are  right,  wife,"  said  Colleville. 

When  they  reached  Rue  des  Deux-Eglises,  which 
Phellion  was  to  take,  they  bade  one  another  good- 
night. Felix  Phellion  thereupon  said  to  Colleville: 

"Monsieur,  your  son  Francois  might  enter  the 
Polytechnic  School  if  he  were  thoroughly  coached ;  I 
will  undertake  to  fit  him  to  pass  the  examinations 
this  year." 

"That's  an  offer  not  to  be  refused!  thanks,  my 
friend,"  said  Colleville;  "we'll  see  about  it" 

"Good!"  said  Phellion  to  his  son. 

"That's  very  clever  of  you!"  cried  the  mother. 

"Why,  what  do  you  see  in  it?"  asked  Felix. 

"Why,  it's  a  very  shrewd  way  of  paying  court  to 
Celeste's  parents." 

"May  I  never  solve  my  problem  if  I  thought  of 
such  a  thing!"  cried  the  young  professor ;  "1  learned 
from  talking  with  the  little  Collevilles  that  Francois 
has  a  bent  for  mathematics,  and  I  thought  it  my  duty 
to  enlighten  his  father — " 

"It's    all    right,    my   son!"    said    Phellion,    "I 


94  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

wouldn't  have  you  other  than  you  are.  My  wishes 
are  fulfilled,  for  my  son  is  upright  and  honorable,  he 
has  the  civic  and  private  virtues  which  I  wish  him 
to  have." 

"Colleville,"  said  Flavie,  when  Celeste  was 
safely  in  bed,  "don't  express  your  opinion  of  people 
so  bluntly  without  knowing  them  thoroughly.  When 
you  talk  of  Jesuits  I  know  you're  thinking  of  priests, 
and  I  beg  you  to  do  me  the  favor  of  keeping  your 
ideas  about  religion  to  yourself  whenever  you're  in 
your  daughter's  presence.  We  have  the  right  to  sac- 
rifice our  own  souls,  but  not  our  children's. — Would 
you  like  to  have  a  creature  without  any  religion  for 
your  daughter's  husband? — You  see,  my  boy,  that 
we're  at  everybody's  mercy;  we  have  four  children 
to  provide  for,  and  can  you  say  that,  sometime  or 
other,  you  may  not  need  this  man's  help  or  that 
man's?  So  don't  go  making  enemies;  you  haven't 
any  now,  for  you're  a  good  fellow,  and,  thanks  to 
that  quality,  which,  in  your  case,  amounts  to  fas- 
cination, we  have  got  along  pretty  well  so  far!" — 

"Enough!  enough!"  said  Colleville,  throwing  his 
coat  on  a  chair  and  untying  his  cravat;  "I  am 
wrong  and  you're  right,  my  dear  Flavie." 

"At  the  first  opportunity,  my  dear  old  sheep, "  said 
the  sly  creature,  patting  her  husband's  cheek,  "try 
to  be  civil  to  that  young  lawyer;  he's  a  shrewd  one, 
and  we  must  have  him  on  our  side.  He's  playing  a 
comedy,  you  say? — very  good,  play  it  with  him; 
pretend  to  be  his  dupe,  and  if  he  really  has  talent, 
and  a  future,  make  a  friend  of  him.  Do  you  suppose 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  95 

I  want  to  see  you  tied  forever  to  your  mayor's 
office?" 

"Come,  Mother  Colleville,"  laughed  the  quondam 
first  clarionet  of  the  Opera-Comique,  patting  his 
knee  to  indicate  the  position  he  wished  his  wife  to 
take,  "let's  warm  our  toes  and  chat — When  I  look 
at  you  I  am  more  and  more  convinced  of  the  truth 
that  a  woman's  youth  is  in  her  figure — " 

"And  in  her  heart — " 

"Both,"  rejoined  Colleville;  "a  slender  figure  and 
a  heavy  heart — " 

"No,  no,  you  great  idiot — deep." 

"The  good  thing  about  you  is  that  you  have  pre- 
served your  white  skin  without  resorting  to  corpu- 
lence!— But  then — you  have  small  bones. — Look 
you,  Flavie,  if  I  were  beginning  life  over  again,  I 
wouldn't  have  any  other  wife  than  you." 

"You  know  very  well  that  I  have  always  pre- 
ferred you  to  the  others. — What  a  pity  Monseigneur 
is  dead!  Do  you  know  what  I'd  like  for  you?" 

"No." 

"A  place  in  the  employ  of  the  city  of  Paris,  with 
twelve  thousand  francs  a  year  or  so;  something  like 
a  cashier's  place,  either  at  the  city  treasury  or  the 
one  at  Poissy,  or  else  a  manufacturer." 

"Any  of  those  would  suit  me." 

"Well,  suppose  that  beast  of  an  advocate  could  do 
something  for  you  in  that  line?  he's  a  schemer; 
let's  make  up  to  him. — I'll  sound  him — let  me  have 
my  way — and  above  all  things  don't  interfere  with 
his  game  at  the  Thuilliers'!" 


96  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Theodose  had  touched  the  sore  spot  in  Flavie 
Colleville's  heart;  this  requires  an  explanation 
which  may  have  some  value  as  a  comprehensive 
glance  at  the  life  of  women  in  general. 

At  forty  years  of  age  a  woman,  especially  a 
woman  who  has  nibbled  at  the  poisoned  apple  of 
passion,  has  a  feeling  of  solemn  dismay;  she  real- 
izes that  for  her  there  are  two  deaths  in  store:  the 
death  of  the  body  and  the  death  of  the  heart.  Con- 
sidering women  as  divided  into  two  great  categories 
corresponding  to  the  ideas  most  commonly  accepted, 
— calling  them  virtuous  or  guilty, — we  may  be 
allowed  to  say  that  when  their  years  reach  that 
lamentable  figure  they  are  conscious  of  the  keenest, 
most  atrocious  suffering.  If  they  be  virtuous  and 
foiled  in  the  desires  with  which  nature  endowed 
them,  whether  they  have  had  the  courage  to  submit, 
or  have  buried  their  rebellious  impulses  in  their 
hearts  or  at  the  altar's  foot,  they  can  not  say  to 
themselves,  without  agony,  that  everything  is  at  an 
end  for  them.  This  thought  has  such  strange,  dia- 
bolical possibilities  that  in  it  may  be  found  the 
explanation  of  many  of  those  cases  of  apostasy, 
which  at  times  surprise  and  terrify  society.  If  they 
be  guilty,  they  find  themselves  in  one  of  those  dis- 
tracting plights  which  often,  alas!  lead  to  madness, 
or  end  in  death,  or  in  outbursts  of  passion  as  terrific 
as  the  situation  itself. 

This  crisis  may  be  thus  expressed  in  the  form  of 
a  dilemma:  Either  they  have  been  happy,  have 
made  a  virtue  of  their  happiness,  and  can  breathe 


M.  COLLEVILLE  AND  FLAVIE 


"S0  don't  go  making  enemies ;  you  haven't  any 
now,  for  you're  a  good  fellow,  and,  thanks  to  that 
quality,  which,  in  your  case,  amounts  to  fascination, 
we  have  got  along  pretty  well  so  far  !  " — 

"Enough  !  enough  /  "  said  Colleville,  throwing  his 
coat  on  a  chair  and  untying  his  cravat ;  "/  am 
wrong  and  you're  right,  my  dear  Flavie'.' 

"At  the  first  opportunity,  my  dear  old  sheep"  said 
the  sly  creature,  patting  her  husband's  cheek,  "  try  to 
be  civil  to  that  young  lawyer  ;  he's  a  shrewd  one,  and 
zve  must  have  him  on  our  side." 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  97 

only  that  incense-laden  air,  can  live  only  in  that 
perfumed  atmosphere  in  which  every  flattering  word 
is  a  caress, — and  in  that  case  how  can  they  renounce 
it  all  ?  Or — and  this  phenomenon  is  even  more 
curious  than  rare — they  have  found  only  fatiguing 
pleasure  in  pursuit  of  a  happiness  which  constantly 
eluded  them,  sustained  in  the  eager  chase  by  the 
teasing  incitements  of  vanity,  priding  themselves 
on  the  game  they  are  playing  as  a  gambler  prides 
himself  upon  his  nerve;  for,  to  them,  these  last 
days  of  beauty  are  the  last  stake  on  the  green  cloth 
of  despair. 

"You  have  been  loved,  but  not  adored!" 

This  remark  from  Theodose,  accompanied  by  a 
keen  glance  which  read,  not  her  heart  but  her  life, 
was  the  solution  of  a  riddle,  and  Flavie  felt  that  she 
was  detected. 

The  advocate  had  repeated  some  few  ideas  which 
frequent  use  has  made  mere  truisms;  but  of  what 
consequence  is  the  material  or  the  shape  of  the 
whip,  when  it  strikes  the  gall  on  the  race-horse's 
flank  ?  The  poetry  was  in  Flavie  and  not  in  the 
ode,  just  as  the  noise  is  not  in  the  avalanche, 
although  it  occasions  it. 

A  young  officer,  two  dandies,  a  banker,  a  stupid 
young  man  and  poor  Colleville, — that  was  a  mel- 
ancholy list  of  attempts.  Once  in  her  life  Madame 
Colleville  had  dreamed  of  happiness,  but  had  not 
really  known  it;  for  death  made  haste  to  put  an  end 
to  the  only  passion  in  which  Flavie  had  found  any 
real  charm.  She  then  listened  two  years  to  the 
7 


98  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

voice  of  religion,  which  told  her  that  neither  the 
church  nor  the  Soc'^ty  of  Jesus  has  aught  to  say 
of  happiness  or  love,  but  only  of  duty  and  resig- 
nation ;  that,  in  the  estimation  of  those  two  great 
powers,  happiness  consists  in  the  satisfaction  caused 
by  the  performance  of  difficult  or  painful  duties,  and 
that  the  reward  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  this  world. 
But  she  heard  at  the  same  time  a  much  shriller 
voice  than  that;  and,  inasmuch  as  her  religion  was 
simply  a  mask  it  was  necessary  to  wear,  and  not  a 
real  conversion,  as  she  did  not  choose  to  lay  it  aside 
because  she  saw  in  it  a  possible  resource,  and  as 
devotion,  whether  real  or  feigned,  was  an  accom- 
plishment adapted  to  adorn  her  future,  she  remained 
in  the  church,  as  if  it  were  a  cross-road  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  forest,  seated  on  a  bench,  reading  the  sign- 
posts, and  awaiting  what  chance  might  bring  to 
pass,  as  she  felt  that  night  was  at  hand. 

So  it  was  that  her  interest  was  keenly  aroused 
when  she  heard  Theodose  describe  her  secret  plight 
without  any  appearance  of  intending  to  take  advan- 
tage of  it,  but  directing  his  attack  against  that  part 
of  her  existence  which  was  purely  internal,  and 
promising  to  build  for  her  upon  a  stable  foundation 
a  castle  in  Spain  which  had  been  seven  or  eight 
times  demolished. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  winter  she  had  noticed 
that  Theodose  was  observing  her  closely  and  study- 
ing her,  although  he  did  it  by  stealth.  More  than 
once  she  had  arrayed  herself  in  her  gray  watered 
silk,  her  best  black  lace,  and  her  head-dress  of 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  99 

flowers  interwoven  with  mechlin,  in  order  to  show 
herself  to  the  best  advantage,  and  men  always  know 
when  a  toilette  has  been  made  for  their  benefit  The 
ghastly  old  dandy  of  the  Empire  murdered  her  with 
vulgar  flattery,  she  was  the  queen  of  the  salon,  but 
the  Provencal  said  still  a  thousand  times  more  with 
one  of  his  sly  glances. 

From  Sunday  to  Sunday  Flavie  awaited  a  declara- 
tion. 

"He  knows  that  I  am  ruined  and  haven't  a  sou!" 
she  would  say  to  herself.  "Perhaps  he  is  really 
pious." 

Theodose  did  not  propose  to  hurry  matters,  and 
like  a  skilful  conductor  he  had  marked  the  place  in 
the  symphony  where  the  blow  was  to  be  struck  on 
the  tom-tom.  When  he  saw  that  Colleville  was 
trying  to  arouse  Thuillier's  suspicions  in  his  regard, 
he  fired  his  broadside,  which  he  had  carefully  pre- 
pared during  the  three  or  four  months  he  had  been 
studying  Flavie,  and  he  had  succeeded  with  her  as 
he  had  succeeded  in  the  morning  with  Thuillier. 

As  he  got  into  bed  he  said  to  himself: 

"The  wife  is  on  my  side,  but  the  husband  can't 
endure  me;  about  this  time  they'll  be  quarreling, 
and  I  shall  come  out  ahead,  for  she  does  what  she 
pleases  with  her  husband." 

The  Provencal  was  mistaken  in  this;  there  had 
not  been  the  slightest  disagreement,  and  Colleville 
was  sleeping  beside  his  dear  little  Flavie,  while  she 
was  saying  to  herself: 

"Theodose  is  a  superior  man." 


Many  men  owe  their  superiority,  as  La  Peyrade 
did,  to  the  audacity  or  difficulty  of  the  task  they 
undertake;  the  strength  they  put  forth  increases  the 
size  of  their  muscles,  they  exert  themselves  prodig- 
iously ;  and  then,  whether  they  attain  success  or  make 
a  failure,  the  world  is  amazed  to  find  what  small, 
pitiful,  worn-out  creatures  they  are.  After  he  had  ex- 
cited to  a  feverish  pitch  the  curiosity  of  the  two  per- 
sons upon  whom  Celeste's  fate  depended,  Theodose 
played  the  busy  man :  for  five  or  six  days  he  was 
away  from  the  house  from  morning  till  night,  so 
that  he  did  not  see  Flavie  again  until  her  desire  had 
reached  the  point  at  which  one  disregards  propri- 
eties ;  and  so  that  he  compelled  the  old  beau  to  come 
to  him. 

On  the  following  Sunday  he  felt  almost  certain  of 
finding  Madame  Colleville  at  church;  as  a  matter  of 
fact  they  left  the  church  at  the  same  moment  and 
met  on  Rue  des  Deux-Eglises;  Theodose  offered  his 
arm  to  Flavie,  who  accepted  it,  bidding  her  daughter 
go  on  before  with  her  brother  Anatole.  The  latter, 
a  boy  of  twelve,  was  to  enter  the  Seminary,  and 
was  a  day-scholar  at  the  Barniol  institution,  receiv- 
ing elementary  instruction;  naturally  enough  Phel- 
lion's  son-in-law  had  made  a  reduction  in  the  price 
of  tuition  in  view  of  the  hoped-for  union  between 
Phellion  and  Celeste. 

(KM) 


102  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Have  you  done  me  the  honor  and  the  favor  to 
think  over  what  I  said  to  you  so  awkwardly  the 
other  day?"  the  advocate  inquired  in  a  wheedling 
tone  of  the  pretty  devotee,  pressing  her  arm  against 
his  heart  with  a  movement  that  was  at  once  gentle 
and  strong,  as  if  he  were  putting  constraint  upon  his 
impulses  in  order  to  appear  duly  respectful.  "Do 
not  misunderstand  my  meaning,"  he  continued,  as 
he  received  from  Madame  Colleville  one  of  those 
glances  which  women  broken  to  the  harness  of  pas- 
sion have  at  command,  and  which,  so  far  as  their 
expression  goes,  are  equally  consistent  with  stern 
indignation  and  with  secret  harmony  of  sentiment. 
"I  love  you  as  one  loves  a  beautiful  character  in  the 
toils  of  misfortune;  Christian  charity  ministers  to 
the  strong  as  well  as  to  the  weak,  and  its  treas- 
ures are  the  property  of  all.  Lovely,  graceful, 
refined  as  you  are,  made  to  be  the  ornament  of  the 
highest  society,  what  man  can  look  upon  you  with- 
out boundless,  heartfelt  compassion,  mingling  with 
these  hateful  plebeians  who  know  nothing  of  you, 
not  even  the  inestimable  value  of  one  of  your  aris- 
tocratic gestures,  of  one  of  your  glances,  or  of  one 
of  the  charming  tones  of  your  voice !  Ah !  if  I  were 
rich ! — ah !  if  I  had  the  power,  your  husband,  who  is 
certainly  a  good  sort  of  fellow,  should  be  receiver- 
general,  and  you  would  procure  his  election  as  dep- 
uty !  But  1  am  a  poor,  ambitious  devil,  whose  first 
duty  it  is  to  silence  my  ambition,  finding  myself  at 
the  bottom  of  the  bag  like  the  last  number  on  a 
family  lottery  ticket,  and  I  can  offer  you  my  arm 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  103 

only,  instead  of  offering  you  my  heart  I  have 
everything  to  hope  from  an  advantageous  marriage, 
and  I  pray  you  to  believe  that  I  would  not  only  make 
my  wife  happy,  but  she  should  be  one  of  the  first  in 
the  land,  as  I  should  receive  from  her  the  means  of 
achieving  success. — It's  a  lovely  day,  come  and  take 
a  turn  in  the  Luxembourg,"  he  added,  as  they 
reached  Rued'Enfer  and  Madame  Colleville's  house, 
opposite  which  was  a  passage  leading  to  the  Luxem- 
bourg garden  by  way  of  the  staircase  of  a  small 
building,  the  last  fragment  of  the  famous  Carthusian 
convent. 

The  pliability  of  the  arm  he  held  denoted  tacit 
acquiescence  on  Flavie's  part,  but,  as  she  was  en- 
titled to  the  distinction  of  being  constrained  to  go, 
he  drew  her  quickly  across  the  street,  adding: 

"Come!  we  sha'n't  often  have  so  good  an 
opportunity. — Oh!"  he  exclaimed,  "your  husband's 
looking  at  us;  he's  at  the  window;  let's  walk 
slowly — " 

"Have  no  fear  of  Monsieur  Colleville,"  said 
Flavie,  with  a  smile,  "he  leaves  me  entirely  free  to 
do  as  1  choose." 

"Ah!  you  are  the  woman  I  have  dreamed  of!" 
cried  the  Provencal,  with  the  enthusiasm  which 
burns  only  in  Southern  hearts  and  the  accent  which 
issues  from  none  but  Southern  lips.  "Forgive  me, 
Madame,"  he  continued,  recovering  his  self-posses- 
sion and  returning  from  a  higher  world  to  the  ban- 
ished angel  at  his  side,  at  whom  he  gazed  with 
pious  veneration;  "forgive  me!  I  return  to  what  I 


104  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

was  saying. — Ah !  how  can  one  fail  to  feel  sympathy 
for  the  sorrows  one  experiences  one's  self,  when  one 
sees  that  they  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  a  being  to 
whom  life  should  bring  naught  but  joy  and  happi- 
ness!— Your  suffering  is  mine;  I  am  no  more  in  my 
proper  place  than  you  are  in  yours;  the  same  ill- 
fortune  makes  us  brother  and  sister.  Dear  Flavie ! 
the  first  day  that  I  was  permitted  to  see  you, — it  was 
the  last  Sunday  in  September,  1838, — you  were  very 
lovely;  I  shall  see  you  often  again  in  that  pretty 
woolen  dress  with  the  tartan  of  some  Scotch  clan  or 
other! — That  day  I  said  to  myself:  'Why  is  that 
woman  at  the  Thuilliers'  ?  and  why  has  she  ever 
had  relations  with  a  Thuillier?'  " 

"Monsieur! — "  exclaimed  Flavie,  terrified  at  the 
turn  the  Provencal  was  giving  to  their  conversation. 

"Oh!  I  know  all  about  it,"  he  cried,  accompany- 
ing his  words  with  an  expressive  movement  of  the 
shoulder,  "and  I  have  worked  out  my  own  explana- 
tion— and  I  think  none  the  less  of  you  for  it.  Bah ! 
it  isn't  the  sin  of  an  ugly  woman  or  a  cripple. — You 
have  to  reap  the  fruits  of  your  error  and  I'll  help 
you  to  do  it!  Celeste  will  be  very  rich,  and  therein 
lies  your  hope  for  the  future;  you  can  have  but  one 
son-in-law,  so  be  shrewd  enough  to  choose  him 
wisely.  An  ambitious  man  may  become  a  minister, 
but  he  will  humiliate  you,  worry  you  to  death  and 
make  your  daughter  unhappy ;  and  if  he  throws  her 
fortune  away  he'll  never  pick  it  up  again,  that  you 
may  be  sure  of.  Yes,  I  love  you,"  said  he,  "and  I 
love  you  with  a  love  that  knows  no  bounds;  you 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  105 

are  above  all  the  paltry  considerations  in  which 
fools  entangle  themselves.  Let  us  understand  each 
other.—" 

Flavie's  breath  was  taken  away ;  she  was  never- 
theless conscious  of  the  extreme  freedom  of  such 
language,  and  she  said  to  herself:  "He  doesn't 
mince  matters,  at  all  events!" — But  she  inwardly 
confessed  that  she  had  never  been  so  deeply  moved 
and  stirred  as  by  this  young  man. 

"Monsieur,  I  can't  imagine  who  can  have  led  you 
astray  concerning  my  past,  or  by  what  right — " 

"Ah!  forgive  me,  Madame,"  interposed  the  Pro- 
vencal, with  a  coldness  bordering  upon  contempt, 
"I  have  been  dreaming.  I  said  to  myself:  'She  is 
all  that!'  but  1  was  deceived  by  appearances.  I  know 
now  why  you  will  always  remain  on  the  fourth  floor 
over  yonder  on  Rue  d'Enfer. " 

He  enforced  his  words  with  an  emphatic  gesture, 
pointing  to  the  windows  of  Colleville's  apartments, 
which  could  be  seen  from  the  avenue  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg where  they  were  walking,  alone  in  that  vast 
field  ploughed  by  so  many  youthful  ambitions. 

"1  have  been  perfectly  frank  and  I  expected  reci- 
procity. 1  have  known  what  it  is  to  be  without 
bread,  Madame;  I  have  succeeded  in  living,  study- 
ing law,  and  obtaining  my  degree  here  in  Paris, 
with  two  thousand  francs  for  my  whole  capital,  and 
I  had  entered  the  city  through  the  Barriere  d'ltalie 
with  five  hundred  francs  in  my  pocket,  swearing, 
like  one  of  my  compatriots,  that  I  would  some  day 
be  one  of  the  first  men  in  the  land. — And  the  man 


106  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

who  has  often  taken  his  food  from  the  baskets  in 
which  the  restaurant-keepers  throw  their  refuse,  and 
which  are  emptied  at  their  doors  at  six  in  the  morn- 
ing, when  the  scavengers  have  got  through  with 
them — that  man  will  not  recoil  from  any  avowable 
expedient — Do  you  believe  me  to  be  a  friend  of  the 
people? — "  he  continued  with  a  smile;  "fame  must 
have  a  speaking-trumpet,  you  know;  it  can  hardly 
make  itself  heard  speaking  in  its  natural  voice! — 
and  without  fame  of  what  use  is  talent?  The  poor 
man's  advocate  will  be  the  rich  man's. — Is  it  enough 
to  open  your  mind  to  me?  Open  your  heart — Say: 
'Let  us  be  friends,'  and  we  shall  both  be  happy 
some  day." — 

"My  God!  why  did  I  come  here?  why  did  1  take 
your  arm? — "  cried  Flavie. 

"Because  your  destiny  so  willed!"  he  replied. — 
"Oh!  my  dear,  darling  Flavie,"  he  added,  pressing 
her  arm  against  his  heart,  "did  you  expect  to  hear 
mere  commonplace  talk  from  me  ? — We  are  brother 
and  sister,  that's  the  whole  story." 

And  he  escorted  her  back  toward  the  passage,  to 
return  to  Rue  d'Enfer. 

Flavie  was  conscious  of  a  feeling  of  terror  beneath 
the  satisfaction  which  violent  emotions  afford  all 
women,  and  she  mistook  this  terror  for  the  sort  of 
dismay  consequent  upon  a  new  passion ;  but  she  felt 
that  she  was  under  a  spell  and  she  walked  along  in 
utter  silence. 

"Of  what  are  you  thinking?"  queried  Theodose 
in  the  middle  of  the  passage. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  107 

"Of  all  that  you  have  said  to  me,"  was  her 
reply. 

"Why,"  he  retorted,  "at  our  age  one  can  dispense 
with  preliminaries;  we  aren't  children  and  we  are 
both  moving  in  a  sphere  in  which  people  ought  to 
understand  one  another.  However,"  he  added,  as 
they  came  out  on  Rue  d'Enfer,  "remember  this, 
that  I  am  entirely  at  your  service." 

And  he  bowed  to  the  ground. 

"The  irons  are  in  the  fire!"  he  said  to  himself  as 
he  looked  after  his  bewildered  victim. 

As  he  was  returning  to  his  own  room,  Theodose 
found  upon  the  landing  an  individual  who  is  to  play 
what  might  be  called  a  submarine  part  in  this  nar- 
rative, like  the  buried  church  upon  which  rests  the 
facade  of  a  palace.  The  sight  of  this  man,  who, 
after  ringing  to  no  purpose  at  Theodose's  door,  had 
just  rung  at  Dutocq's,  made  the  young  Provencal 
advocate  shudder,  but  it  was  an  internal  shudder, 
and  nothing  in  his  external  appearance  betrayed  his 
deep  emotion.  This  man  was  Cerizet,  whom 
Dutocq  had  mentioned  to  Thuillier  as  his  copyist 

Cerizet,  although  he  was  but  thirty-eight,  looked 
to  be  a  man  of  fifty,  for  everything  that  can  bring 
old  age  prematurely  upon  a  man  had  combined  to 
produce  that  effect  upon  him.  His  head,  entirely 
bereft  of  hair,  afforded  a  view  of  a  yellowish  skull, 
badly  covered  by  a  wig  which  had  turned  red  in 
spots.  His  pale,  flabby  face,  coarse  beyond  expres- 
sion, was  the  more  horrible  to  look  at,  in  that  the 
nose  was  partially  eaten  away,  but  not  to  such  an 


108  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

extent  that  he  could  resort  to  a  false  organ  to  replace 
it;  from  the  top  of  the  nose,  where  it  joins  the  fore- 
head, to  the  nostrils,  it  existed  as  nature  made  it; 
but  the  horrible  disease,  after  eating  away  the  wings 
toward  the  end,  left  only  two  holes  of  a  curious 
shape, — the  result  being  that  his  pronunciation  was 
impaired  and  speech  made  difficult  for  him.  His 
eyes,  which  were  once  handsome,  but  had  been 
weakened  by  abuse  of  every  description  and  by 
nights  passed  without  sleep,  were  red  around  the 
rims,  and  had  changed  tremendously  for  the  worse; 
his  look,  when  it  was  charged  with  malice  by  his 
evil  heart,  would  have  terrified  judges  or  crimi- 
nals,— those  persons,  that  is  to  say,  whom  nothing 
terrifies. 

His  mouth,  quite  unfurnished  save  for  a  few  black 
stumps  of  teeth,  gave  a  threatening  expression  to 
his  face;  from  it  oozed  a  fine,  frothy  saliva  which 
never  got  beyond  the  thin,  colorless  lips.  Cerizet 
was  a  small  man,  dried  up  rather  than  lean ;  he  tried 
to  make  up  for  his  ugliness  of  feature  by  his  cos- 
tume, and  although  he  did  not  dress  richly,  his  dress 
was  always  scrupulously  neat,  but  perhaps  that  very 
quality  only  served  to  make  its  shabbiness  more 
noticeable.  In  him  everything  seemed  doubtful, 
everything  partook  of  the  character  of  his  age  and 
his  nose  and  his  look.  It  was  impossible  to  say 
whether  he  was  thirty-eight  years  old  or  sixty, 
whether  his  blue  pantaloons,  faded  to  be  sure,  but 
very  well-fitting,  would  soon  be  in  fashion,  or  were 
in  fashion  in  the  year  1835.  His  boots,  down  at  the 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  109 

heel  and  thrice  patched,  but  carefully  polished — they 
were  fine  shoes  in  their  day — had  perhaps  walked 
upon  ministerial  carpets.  His  frogged  overcoat, 
shrunken  by  exposure  to  the  rain,  whereon  the  olive- 
shaped  buttons  were  so  indiscreet  as  to  afford 
glimpses  of  their  moulds,  bore  witness  by  its  shape 
to  its  bygone  elegance.  His  satin  neck-cloth  very 
luckily  concealed  his  linen,  but  it  was  torn  behind 
by  the  tongue  of  the  buckle,  and  the  gloss  of  the 
satin  was  heightened  by  a  sort  of  oil  distilled  from 
the  wig. 

In  the  days  of  its  youth  his  waistcoat  did  not  lack 
freshness,  but  it  was  one  of  the  waistcoats  which 
are  sold  for  four  francs  and  come  from  the  depths  of 
the  stock  of  a  dealer  in  ready-made  clothing.  Every- 
thing was  carefully  brushed,  like  his  shiny,  battered 
silk  hat  Each  part  of  the  costume  was  in  harmony 
with  every  other,  and  reconciled  one  to  the  black 
gloves  that  concealed  the  hands  of  this  secondary 
Mephistopheles,  whose  life  prior  to  his  introduction 
to  the  reader  is  here  presented  in  a  few  words. 

He  was  an  artist  in  evil,  with  whom,  at  the 
beginning,  evil  had  proved  successful,  so  that,  led 
on  by  his  early  good  luck,  he  continued  to  devise 
infamous  schemes,  keeping  always  within  the  law. 
Having  become  manager  of  a  printing-office  by 
betraying  his  master,  he  had  been  convicted  of  con- 
ducting a  liberal  newspaper;  and  in  the  provinces, 
during  the  Restoration,  he  was  one  of  the  betes 
noires  of  the  government  and  was  the  unfortunate 
Ceri%et,  like  the  unfortunate  Chauvet  and  the 


1 10  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

heroic  Mercier.  To  this  reputation  for  patriotism  he 
owed  his  appointment  as  a  sub-prefect  in  1830;  six 
months  after,  he  was  dismissed;  but  he  claimed 
that  he  was  tried  without  a  hearing,  and  he  made 
such  an  outcry  that  under  the  ministry  of  Casimir 
Perier  he  became  manager  of  an  anti-republican 
journal  in  the  pay  of  the  ministry.  He  abandoned 
that  to  go  into  business  on  his  own  account,  and  one 
of  his  ventures  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most  rascally 
of  stock-company  swindles ;  it  was  investigated  by 
the  criminal  tribunals,  and  he  proudly  submitted  to 
the  severe  sentence  he  received,  declaring  that  it  was 
mere  underhand  vengeance  on  the  part  of  the  repub- 
licans, who,  he  said,  would  never  forgive  him  for 
dealing  them  such  rough  blows  in  his  journal, 
inflicting  ten  wounds  for  their  one.  He  served  his 
sentence  in  a  hospital.  The  government  finally  felt 
ashamed  of  a  man  who  was  brought  up  in  a  found- 
ling asylum,  and  whose  intemperate  habits  and 
shameful  exploits  in  connection  with  a  former 
banker  named  Claparon,  had  finally  brought  him 
into  well-deserved  disrepute.  Thus  Cerizet,  having 
fallen  by  degrees  to  the  lowest  rung  of  the  social 
ladder,  had  to  depend  upon  some  lingering  feeling 
of  pity  to  obtain  the  place  of  copyist  in  Dutocq's 
office.  In  his  hopeless  poverty  the  man  dreamed  of 
revenge,  and  as  he  had  nothing  more  to  lose,  no 
means  were  too  base  for  him.  Dutocq  and  he  found 
in  their  depraved  habits  a  bond  of  union.  Cerizet 
was  to  Dutocq,  in  the  quarter,  what  the  hound  is  to 
the  hunter.  Cerizet,  being  acquainted  with  all  the 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  III 

requirements  of  all  kinds  of  misfortune,  practised 
that  gutter  variety  of  usury  called  extortion;  he 
began  by  sharing  with  Dutocq,  and  the  former  Paris 
gamin,  become  the  banker  of  the  women  hawkers, 
the  bill-discounter  of  chair-porters,  was  the  pest  of 
two  faubourgs. 

"Well,"  said  Cerizet,  as  Dutocq  opened  his  door, 
"Theodose  has  come  home,  so  let's  go  up  to  his 
room." 

The  poor  man's  lawyer  stepped  aside  to  allow  his 
two  friends  to  precede  him. 

The  three  men  passed  through  a  small  room  with 
a  polished  tile  floor,  where  the  light  shone  in  through 
calico  curtains  upon  a  layer  of  red  encaustic,  dis- 
closing to  view  a  modest  round  black  walnut  table 
and  a  walnut  buffet,  on  which  stood  a  lamp. 
Thence,  they  passed  into  a  tiny  red-curtained  salon, 
furnished  in  mahogany  covered  with  red  Utrecht 
velvet;  the  wall  opposite  the  windows  was  occupied 
by  a  library  filled  with  books  on  jurisprudence.  On 
the  mantel-piece  were  a  few  common  ornaments :  a 
clock  with  four  mahogany  pillars,  and  candles  under 
glass.  The  office,  where  the  three  friends  proceeded 
to  seat  themselves  before  a  peat  fire,  was  the  typical 
office  of  an  advocate  just  beginning  practice:  the 
furniture  consisted  of  a  desk,  the  regulation  arm- 
chair, narrow  green  silk  curtains  at  the  windows,  a 
green  carpet,  a  case  for  boxes,  and  a  couch,  above 
which  was  an  ivory  crucifix  upon  a  velvet  back- 
ground. The  bedroom,  kitchen  and  the  othei 
rooms  of  the  suite  looked  on  the  court-yard. 


112  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Well,"  said  Cerizet,  "is  everything  going  on  all 
right?  Are  we  getting  ahead ?" 

"Why,  yes,"  replied  Theodose. 

"You  must  agree  that  it  was  a  brilliant  idea  of 
mine,"  cried  Dutocq,  "to  think  out  a  way  of  in- 
veigling that  idiot  of  a  Thuillier." — 

"Yes,  but  I'm  not  behind  hand,"  cried  Cerizet; 
"I  have  come  this  morning  to  bring  you  the  cords  to 
tie  the  old  maid  up  by  the  thumbs  and  make  her 
spin  round  like  a  teetotum. — Don't  make  any  mis- 
take! Mademoiselle  Thuillier  is  everything  in  this 
business;  with  her  on  our  side  the  place  is  taken. 
Let  us  talk  a  bit,  but  let's  speak  our  minds,  as  befits 
clever  men  like  us.  My  old  partner,  Claparon,  is  a 
fool,  as  you  know,  and  he  ought  to  be  all  his  life  just 
what  he  was,  a  mere  dummy.  Well,  at  this  moment 
his  name  is  being  used  by  a  Paris  notary  who  is  mixed 
up  with  certain  building-contractors,  and  they're  all 
coming  to  grief,  notary  and  masons  and  all !  Cl-iparon 
has  to  stand  the  brunt  of  it:  he  has  never  failed,  but 
there  has  to  be  a  first  time  for  everything,  and  at  this 
moment  he's  in  hiding  in  my  shanty  on  Rue  des 
Poules,  where  no  one  will  ever  find  him.  My  Cl  .p- 
aron  is  in  a  fearful  rage,  for  he  hasn't  a  sou;  rmd 
among  the  five  or  six  houses  to  be  sold  in  liquida- 
tion there's  a  little  gem  of  a  house,  built  of  cut 
stone,  close  to  the  Madeleine, — the  front  ornamented 
like  a  melon,  with  delicious  sculptures, — but  it  isn't 
finished  and  won't  fetch  more  than  a  hundred  thous- 
and francs;  by  spending  twenty-five  thousand  on  it, 
it  may  be  worth  ten  thousand  a  year  a  couple  of 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  113 

years  hence.  By  suggesting  to  Mademoiselle  Thuil- 
lier to  become  the  proprietor  of  that  piece  of  prop- 
erty, you  will  become  her  love,  for  you  can  make 
her  understand  that  you  can  put  such  opportunities 
in  her  way  every  year.  The  way  to  get  hold  of 
vain  people  is  either  to  flatter  their  self-esteem  or 
to  frighten  them;  you  have  a  miser  under  your 
thumb  when  you  attack  his  purse  or  when  you  fill 
it  for  him.  And  as  we're  working  for  ourselves, 
after  all,  by  working  for  Thuillier,  why  we  must  let 
him  have  the  benefit  of  this  stroke  of  business." 

"And  the  notary,"  said  Dutocq;  "why  does  he 
let  things  go?" 

"The  notary,  my  dear  fellow?  he's  just  the  man 
who  saves  us!  Being  compelled  to  sell  his  office, 
and  utterly  ruined  besides,  he  has  reserved  this  por- 
tion of  the  ruin  for  himself.  Trusting  to  the  honesty 
of  Claparon  the  imbecile,  he  has  left  it  to  him  to 
find  a  nominal  purchaser;  for  trustworthiness  is  as 
essential  as  prudence  in  his  agent  We  will  let  him 
think  that  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  is  an  unsuspecting 
creature  who  lends  her  name  to  poor  Claparon,  and 
they'll  both  be  taken  in,  Claparon  and  the  notary, 
too.  I  owe  my  friend  Claparon  this  little  trick,  for 
he  left  me  to  bear  the  whole  brunt  of  that  stock- 
company  business,  in  which  we  were  put  under  the 
harrow  by  Couture — I  wouldn't  like  you  to  be  in  his 
skin,  by  the  way!"  he  said,  with  a  gleam  of  infernal 
hatred  in  his  lack-lustre  eyes.  "I  have  said  my  say, 
Messeigneurs!"  he  added,  raising  his  voice,  which 
issued  entirely  from  his  nasal  cavities,  and  striking 
8 


114  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

a  theatrical  attitude;  for,  at  one  time,  when  he  was 
in  the  last  stages  of  poverty,  he  had  taken  to  the 
boards. 

As  he  concluded  his  harangue,  some  one  rang  the 
bell  and  La  Peyrade  went  to  open  the  door. 

"Are  you  still  satisfied  with  him?"  Cerizet  asked 
Dutocq.  "There's  a  something  about  him, — you 
see  I'm  a  connoisseur  in  treachery." 

"He  is  so  entirely  in  our  power,"  said  Dutocq, 
"that  I  don't  take  the  trouble  to  watch  him ;  but, 
between  ourselves,  I  had  no  idea  he  was  so  much  of 
a  man  as  he  is. — You  see  we  thought  we  were  put- 
ting a  frisky  horse  between  the  legs  of  a  man  who 
didn't  know  how  to  ride,  and  the  rascal  turns  out  to 
be  an  old  jockey!  That's  the  whole  story — " 

"Let  him  beware!"  said  Cerizet,  threateningly ; 
"I  can  blow  him  over  like  a  house  built  of  cards. 
As  for  you,  Papa  Dutocq,  you  can  see  him  at  work 
and  watch  him  every  moment;  keep  your  eye  on 
him!  However,  1  have  a  way  of  feeling  him  by 
having  Claparon  propose  to  him  to  throw  us  over, 
and  we  can  judge  him  then. — " 

"That's  all  right,"  said  Dutocq,  "you  haven't  got 
cold  in  your  eyes." 

"/  know  a  thing  or  two,  that's  all !"  said  Cerizet. 

These  words  were  exchanged  in  a  low  voice  while 
Theodose  answered  the  door-bell  and  returned  to 
them.  Cerizet  was  looking  around  the  office  when 
the  advocate  reappeared. 

"It's  Thuillier, "  said  Theodose;  "I  was  expect- 
ing him;  he's  in  the  salon  now. — He  mustn't  see 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  11$ 

Cerizet's  overcoat,"  he  added,  with  a  smile;  "those 
frogs  would  make  him  uneasy." 

"Nonsense!  you  receive  poor  devils  here;  that's 
part  of  your  game. — Are  you  in  need  of  money?" 
added  Cerizet,  producing  a  hundred  francs  from  his 
fob.  "There,  there,  that'll  do  nicely." 

And  he  placed  the  pile  of  coins  on  the  mantel- 
piece. 

"At  all  events,  we  can  go  out  through  the  bed- 
room," said  Dutocq. 

"Well,  adieu,"  said  the  Provencal,  opening  the 
concealed  door  leading  from  his  office  to  his  bedroom. 
— "Come  in,  dear  Monsieur  Thuillier,"  he  cried  to 
the  old  beau  of  the  Empire. 

When  he  saw  him  at  the  door  of  the  office  he 
escorted  his  two  confederates  through  his  bedroom, 
dressing-room  and  kitchen,  the  latter  of  which  had 
a  door  opening  on  the  courtyard. 

"In  six  months,  you  ought  to  be  Celeste's  hus- 
band, and  on  the  high-road  to  fame. — You're  a  lucky 
fellow;  you  haven't  sat  in  the  dock  of  the  police 
court  twice — as  I  have!  the  first  time  in  1825,  when 
I  was  prosecuted  on  account  of  the  alleged  implica- 
tions in  some  articles  I  never  wrote ;  and  the  second 
time  on  account  of  the  profits  of  a  stock-company 
that  we  just  got  a  sniff  of!  Come!  we  must  rush 
this  thing,  deuce  take  me !  for  Dutocq  and  1  are  both 
damnably  in  need  of  our  twenty-five  thousand  francs ; 
keep  up  your  pluck,  my  friend!"  he  added,  giving 
his  hand  to  Theodose,  and  mentally  making  that 
hand-shake  a  test  of  his  good  faith. 


Il6  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

The  Provencal  gave  Cerizet  his  right  hand,  and 
pressed  his  with  much  warmth. 

"My  boy,  you  may  be  very  sure  that,  whatever 
position  I  may  be  in,  I  shall  never  forget  that  from 
which  you  extricated  me  to  put  me  on  horseback 
here. — I  am  your  hook,  but  you  have  given  me  the 
best  part  of  the  prey,  and  I  must  be  viler  than  a 
galley-slave  who  turns  spy,  not  to  play  a  fair  game. " 

As  soon  as  the  door  was  closed  Cerizet  looked 
through  the  keyhole  to  get  a  glimpse  of  Theodose's 
face;  but  the  Provencal  had  turned  and  gone  to  join 
Thuillier,  so  that  his  suspicious  associate  was  unable 
to  discover  the  expression  of  his  features. 

It  was  neither  disgust  nor  vexation,  but  pure 
delight,  that  was  depicted  on  Theodose's  face  when 
the  necessity  for  dissimulation  was  removed.  He 
saw  that  his  prospects  of  success  were  increasing, 
and  he  flattered  himself  that  he  could  easily  get  rid 
of  his  low  confederates,  to  whom,  however,  he  owed 
everything.  Poverty  has  unfathomable  depths  of 
filth,  especially  in  Paris,  and,  when  a  man  who  has 
been  drowned  therein  rises  to  the  surface,  his  body 
and  his  clothes  are  covered  with  slime.  Cerizet,  the 
once  opulent  friend,  the  patron  of  Theodose,  was  the 
slime  that  still  clung  to  the  Provencal  from  that  im- 
mersion, and  the  former  company-promoter  shrewdly 
guessed  that  he  proposed  to  give  himself  a  brushing 
now  that  he  found  himself  in  a  sphere  where  decent 
garb  was  a  requisite  of  success. 

"Well,  my  dear  Theodose,"  said  Thuillier,  "we 
have  hoped  to  see  you  every  day  this  week,  and 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  117 

every  day  our  hopes  have  been  disappointed.  As 
this  is  the  Sunday  when  we  have  a  dinner-party,  my 
wife  and  sister  sent  me  to  insist  on  your  coming." 

"I  have  been  so  busy,"  said  Theodose,  "that  I 
haven't  had  two  minutes  to  give  to  anybody,  not 
even  to  you,  whom  I  look  upon  as  my  friend;  and  I 
had  something  to  say  to  you — " 

"What!  are  you  really  thinking  seriously  of  what 
you  said  to  me?"  cried  Thuillier,  interrupting  him. 

"If  you  hadn't  come  here  so  that  we  could  have 
an  understanding,  I  shouldn't  think  so  much  of  you 
as  I  do,"  replied  La  Peyrade,  with  a  smile.  "You 
have  been  a  deputy-chief;  therefore  you  have 
some  little  ambition  remaining,  and  it's  devil- 
ishly right  you  should  have, — come  then!  between 
ourselves,  when  we  see  a  Minard,  a  gilded  jug, 
going  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  king  and  prancing 
about  at  the  Tuileries;  a  Popinot  in  a  fair  way  to 
become  a  minister; — and  you,  a  man  broken  down 
by  hard  work  in  the  departments,  a  man  with  thirty 
years'  experience,  who  has  seen  six  governments, 
doing  nothing  but  pick  flowers. — Think  of  it!— 1  tell 
you  frankly,  my  dear  Thuillier,  I  propose  to  push 
you  because  you'll  draw  me  along  after. — This  is 
my  plan.  We  shall  soon  have  to  choose  a  member 
of  the  General  Council  in  this  arrondissement  and 
you  must  be  the  man!— And,"  he  added,  emphati- 
cally, "you  shall  be!  Some  day  you'll  be  Deputy 
of  the  chamber  for  the  arrondissement,  when  a  new 
Chamber  is  chosen,  and  that  will  be  before  long. — 
The  votes  that  send  you  to  the  Municipal  Council 


Il8  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

will  be  for  you  still  when  there's  a  deputy  to  be 
elected,  trust  me  for  that." — 

"But  what  means  do  you  propose  to  use  ? — "  cried 
Thuillier,  completely  fascinated. 

"You  shall  know  in  good  time,  but  just  let  me 
manage  the  business;  it  will  be  a  hard  job  and 
will  take  a  long  time;  if  you  are  guilty  of  any  in- 
discretion as  to  what  is  said,  or  done,  or  agreed 
between  us,  why  I'll  drop  you  and  be  your  humble 
servant!" 

"Oh!  you  can  rely  on  the  absolute  dumbness  of 
an  ex-deputy-chief  clerk ;  I  have  had  secrets  before 
now — " 

"Very  good !  but  this  is  a  matter  of  having  secrets 
from  your  wife  and  sister  and  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Colleville." 

"Not  a  muscle  of  my  face  shall  move,"  said 
Thuillier,  forcing  himself  to  be  calm. 

"Good!"  rejoined  La  Peyrade;  "I'll  test  you. 
In  order  to  be  eligible  you  must  pay  the  rate,  and 
you  don't  pay  it" 

"I  beg  your  pardon!  I'm  all  right  for  election  to 
the  General  Council.  I  pay  two  francs  eighty-six 
centimes." 

"True,  but  to  be  eligible  to  the  Chamber,  the 
rate  is  five  hundred  francs,  and  there's  no  time  to 
lose,  for  we  must  be  prepared  to  prove  eligibility 
for  a  year." 

"The  devil!"  exclaimed  Thuillier,  "to  be  taxed 
five  hundred  francs  for  something  a  year  ahead — " 

"You  must  pay  them  by  the  end  of  July  at  latest; 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  119 

my  devotion  to  your  interests  carries  me  so  far  as 
to  let  you  into  the  secret  of  a  little  scheme  by  which 
you  can  earn  thirty  or  forty  thousand  francs  a  year 
on  a  capital  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  at  the 
outside.  But  your  sister  has  managed  the  financial 
affairs  of  your  whole  family  for  a  long  time;  and  I 
am  very  far  from  condemning  that  way  of  doing 
business;  she  has,  as  they  say,  more  judgment 
than  any  one  I  ever  saw :  so  you  must  begin  by  allow- 
ing me  to  win  Mademoiselle  Brigitte's  good-will  and 
affection  by  suggesting  this  investment  to  her,  and 
for  this  reason.  If  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  had  no 
faith  in  me  we  should  experience  some  unpleasant 
sensations;  and  then,  too,  is  it  for  you  to  suggest 
to  your  sister  to  take  the  deed  of  the  property  in 
your  name?  It's  much  better  that  the  suggestion 
should  come  from  me.  However,  you  shall  both 
make  up  your  own  minds  about  the  matter.  As  for 
my  means  of  procuring  your  election  to  the  Munici- 
pal Council  of  the  Seine,  they  are  these:  Phellion 
has  a  fourth  of  the  votes  in  the  quarter  at  his  dis- 
posal ;  he  and  Laudigeois  have  lived  here  thirty 
years  and  they're  listened  to  like  oracles.  I  have  a 
friend  who  can  turn  over  another  fourth,  and  the 
cure  of  Saint- Jacques,  whose  virtuous  qualities  give 
him  a  certain  amount  of  influence,  may  have  some 
few  votes.  Dutocq,  who,  as  well  as  the  justice  of 
the  peace,  is  thrown  constantly  in  contact  with  the 
people,  will  help  me,  especially  if  I'm  not  acting  on 
my  own  account;  and  lastly,  Colleville,  as  mayor's 
secretary,  represents  a  fourth  of  the  votes." 


120  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Why,  you're  quite  right,  antl  I'm  as  good  as 
elected!"  cried  Thuillier.  Jjf 

"Do  you  think  so  ?"  rejoined  La  Peyrade,  in  a  tone 
of  indescribable  irony;  "well,  just  go  and  ask  your 
friend  Colleville  to  help  you,  and  you'll  see  what 
answer  he'll  make.  In  these  election  matters  a 
triumph  is  never  won  by  the  candidate  himself,  but 
by  his  friends.  He  must  never  ask  anything  him- 
self for  himself,  but  he  must  arrange  it  so  that  he'll 
be  entreated  to  accept,  and  must  seem  to  have  no 
ambition." 

"La  Peyrade !" — cried  Thuillier,  rising  and  grasp- 
ing the  young  lawyer's  hand,  "you're  a  very  supe- 
rior man!" 

"Not  so  superior  as  you,  but  I  have  some  little 
shrewdness  of  my  own,"  replied  the  Provencal  with 
a  smile. 

"But  if  we  succeed  how  am  I  to  repay  you?" 
asked  Thuillier,  innocently. 

"Ah !  there  we  are. — You'll  think  me  impertinent ; 
but  pray  consider  that  I  am  inspired  by  a  sentiment 
which  should  excuse  whatever  I  may  say,  for  it  has 
given  me  the  courage  for  this  undertaking!  I  am  in 
love  and  I  choose  you  as  my  confidant." 

"In  love  with  whom?"  said  Thuillier. 

"Your  dear  little  Celeste,"  replied  La  Peyrade, 
"and  my  love  is  your  guarantee  of  my  devotion  to 
your  interests;  what  wouldn't  I  do  for  a.  father-in- 
law  !  It's  pure  selfishness  on  my  part ;  I  am  working 
for  myself—" 

"Hush!"  cried  Thuillier. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  121 

"Why,  my  friend,"  said  La  Peyrade,  laying  his 
hand  on  Thuillier's  shoulder,  "if  Flavie  were  not 
my  friend,  if  I  didn't  know  everything,  should  I 
speak  to  you  about  it?  But  wait  for  her  on  that 
subject,  and  don't  broach/ it  to  her.  Hark  ye;  I  am 
of  the  stuff  ministers  are  made  of,  and  1  don't  want 
Celeste  unless  I  have  earned  her :  so  you  will  not 
give  her  to  me  until  the  eve  of  the  election  when 
your  name  comes  out  from  the  urn  often  enough  to 
make  it  the  name  of  a  deputy  for  Paris.  To  be 
deputy  for  Paris,  you  must  get  ahead  of  Minard: 
you  must  therefore  crush  Minard,  you  must  retain 
your  means  of  influence,  and  to  obtain  that  result, 
leave  Celeste  as  a  hope ;  we  will  play  them  all  for  her. 
— Some  day  Madame  Colleville  and  you  and  1  will  be 
people  of  consequence.  Pray  don't  think  that  I  am 
actuated  by  any  material  interest;  1  want  Celeste 
without  fortune, — with  hopes  and  nothing  more. — To 
live  in  your  family,  to  leave  my  wife  in  your  midst, 
that  is  my  programme. — You  see  I  have  no  hidden 
motive.  As  for  yourself,  six  months  after  your  elec- 
tion to  the  General  Council  you'll  have  the  Cross, 
and  when  you  are  elected  to  the  Chamber,  you  can 
procure  your  own  appointment  as  an  officer  in  the 
Legion. — When  we  come  to  your  speeches  in  the 
Chamber,  why,  we'll  write  them  together !  It  may 
be  necessary  for  you  to  appear  as  the  author  of  a 
serious  work  on  some  half-moral,  half-political  sub- 
ject, such  as  charitable  establishments  considered 
from  an  ethical  standpoint,  or  the  reform  of  the 
pawn-shops,  which  are  a  frightful  scandal.  Let  us 


122  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

add  a  little  lustre  to  your  name, — that  will  do  good, 
especially  in  this  district.  I  have  said  to  you: 
'You  shall  have  the  Cross,  and  become  a  member  of 
the  General  Council  of  the  department  of  the 
Seine.'  Very  good;  rely  upon  me;  don't  think  of 
taking  me  into  your  family  until  you  have  a  ribbon 
in  your  buttonhole,  or  until  the  day  after  you  take 
your  seat  in  the  Chamber.  Meanwhile,  I  will  do 
more  for  you;  I  will  give  you  forty  thousand  francs 
a  year." 

"For  either  one  of  the  three  things  alone,  you 
should  have  our  Celeste!" 

"Such  a  pearl  among  women!"  ejaculated  La 
Peyrade,  looking  at  the  ceiling;  "I  am  weak  enough 
to  pray  God  for  her  welfare  every  day.  She's  a 
charming  creature,  and  she  looks  like  you,  too. — 
What  the  devil !  do  I  need  any  arguments  to  make 
me  love  her  ?  Great  God !  it  was  Dutocq  who  told 
it  all  to  me.  Farewell  until  to-night!  I  am  going 
to  Phellion's  to  work  for  you.  Ah!  it  goes  without 
saying  that  you  are  a  hundred  miles  from  thinking 
of  me  as  Celeste's  husband, — otherwise  you'd  cut 
off  my  arms  and  legs.  Not  a  word  about  this,  even 
to  Flavie!  Wait  till  she  speaks  to  you.  Phellion 
will  be  ready  to  use  force  on  you  to-night,  to  bring 
you  over  to  his  plan  of  proposing  you  as  a  candi- 
date." 

"To-night?"  said  Thuillier. 

"To-night,"  replied  La  Peyrade,  "unless  I  fail  to 
find  him." 

Thuillier  left  the  room,  saying  to  himself: 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  123 

"That's  a  superior  man!  we  always  understand 
each  other  perfectly,  and  faith !  we  might  find  it 
hard  to  pick  up  a  better  man  than  him  for  Celeste ; 
they'll  live  with  us,  as  part  of  the  family,  and 
that's  a  great  thing;  he's  a  good  fellow,  a  fine 
man — " 

To  minds  of  the  quality  of  Thuillier's  a  secondary 
consideration  is  as  weighty  as  an  argument  of  the 
first  importance.  Theodose's  good-fellowship  had 
been  charming  throughout 


The  house  toward  which  Theodose  bent  his  steps 
a  few  moments  later  had  been  Phellion's  hoc  erat  in 
•votis  for  twenty  years;  and  it  was  as  unmistakably 
the  house  for  the  Phellion  family  as  the  frogs  on 
Cerizet's  redingote  were  its  necessary  ornaments. 

It  was  planted  in  front  of  a  much  larger  house  and 
was  but  one  room  deep, — about  twenty  feet;  at 
each  end  was  a  sort  of  pavilion  with  a  single 
window.  Its  principal  attractions  were  a  garden 
about  sixty  yards  wide,  and  longer  than  the  house- 
front  by  the  whole  length  of  a  courtyard  upon  the 
street,  and  a  clump  of  yew  trees.  Beyond  the  second 
pavilion  the  court-yard  was  shut  off  from  the  street 
by  two  gratings  with  a  small  two-winged  gate 
between  them. 

The  building  was  of  rough  stone  covered  with 
plaster  painted  yellow,  and  was  two  stories  high; 
the  blinds  and  shutters  on  the  ground-floor  were 
green.  The  kitchen  was  on  the  ground-floor  of  the 
pavilion  that  opened  on  the  court-yard,  and  the  cook, 
a  stout,  rugged  girl,  protected  by  two  huge  dogs, 
performed  the  functions  of  concierge.  The  facade, 
in  which  there  were  five  windows  beside  the  two 
pavilions,  which  jutted  out  a  yard  or  more,  was  of 
the  Phellion  style  of  architecture.  Above  the  door 
he  had  inserted  a  white  marble  tablet,  upon  which 
(125) 


126  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

were  these  words  in  letters  of  gold :  Aurea  Mediocri- 
tas.  Above  the  semi-dial,  drawn  in  one  of  the 
courses  of  the  facade,  might  be  read  this  wise 
maxim :  Umbra  mea  vita,  sic  I 

The  window-sills  had  been  recently  replaced  by 
others  of  red  Languedoc  marble,  picked  up  at 
a  stone-yard.  At  the  back  of  the  garden  was 
a  colored  statue  which  reminded  passers-by  of  a 
nurse  with  a  child  at  her  breast  Phellion  was 
his  own  gardener.  The  ground-floor  contained  only 
a  salon  and  a  dining-room,  separated  by  the  stair- 
case, the  landing  being  the  only  reception-room. 
At  the  end  of  the  salon  was  a  small  room  used  by 
Phellion  as  an  office. 

On  the  first  floor  were  the  apartments  of  Phellion 
and  his  wife,  and  the  young  professor;  on  the 
second  floor  the  children's  rooms  and  the  servants' ; 
for  Phellion,  in  view  of  his  own  age  and  his  wife's, 
had  burdened  himself  with  a  male  domestic  about 
fifteen  years  old,  since  his  son  had  become  a  teacher. 
At  the  left  as  you  entered  the  court-yard  were  some 
small  outbuildings  now  used  as  wood  sheds;  the  last 
owner  had  used  them  for  a  porter's  lodge.  The  Phel- 
lions  were  doubtless  waiting  for  the  marriage  of  their 
son,  the  professor,  before  indulging  in  that  luxury. 

This  property,  on  which  Phellion  had  long  had 
his  eye,  cost  him  eighteen  thousand  francs  in  1831. 
The  house  was  separated  from  the  court-yard  by  a 
balustrade,  upon  a  hewn  stone  foundation,  decorated 
with  roof-tiles  laid  one  upon  another,  and  covered 
with  flagstones.  This  little  wall,  which  was  about 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  127 

breast-high,  was  lined  with  Bengal  rose  bushes,  and 
in  the  middle  was  a  wooden  gate  made  in  imitation 
of  a  grating,  opposite  the  double  gate  leading  to  the 
street 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  Impasse  des 
Feuillantines  will  understand  that  the  Phellion 
house,  standing  at  right  angles  to  the  street,  had  a 
full  southern  exposure  and  was  sheltered  on  the 
northern  side  by  the  high  party-wall  against  which 
it  stood.  The  dome  of  the  Pantheon  and  that  of  the 
Val-de-Grace  were  like  two  giants  as  seen  from 
there,  and  so  diminished  the  supply  of  air  that  one 
walking  in  the  garden  felt  as  if  he  were  hemmed  in 
between  two  mountains.  Moreover,  nothing  can  be 
more  deathly  silent  than  the  Impasse  des  Feuillan- 
tines. Such  was  the  retreat  of  the  great  unknown 
citizen  who  was  now  tasting  the  sweets  of  repose, 
after  paying  his  debt  to  his  country  by  toiling  at 
the  Treasury  Department,  from  which  he  had  retired 
after  thirty-six  years'  service. 

In  1832  he  led  his  battalion  of  the  National  Guard 
to  the  attack  on  Saint-Merri,  but  neighbors  saw  that 
there  were  tears  in  his  eyes  at  the  thought  of  being 
obliged  to  fire  upon  the  misguided  Frenchmen.  The 
affair  was  decided  before  the  legion  crossed  Pont 
Notre-Dame  on  the  double-quick,  coming  from  the 
Quai  aux  Fleurs.  This  praiseworthy  hesitation 
won  for  him  the  esteem  of  the  whole  quarter,  but 
he  lost  by  it  the  decoration  of  the  Legion  of  Honor ; 
the  colonel  remarked  aloud  that  one  should  not  stop 
to  deliberate  when  under  arms;  a  remark  made 


128  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

by  Louis-Philippe  to  the  National  Guard  of  Metz. 
Nevertheless,  the  bourgeois  virtues  of  Phellion,  and 
the  profound  respect  entertained  for  him  in  the 
quarter  kept  him  in  command  of  the  battalion  for 
eight  years.  He  was  nearing  sixty,  and,  as  the 
moment  approached  when  he  must  lay  aside  the 
sword  and  gorget,  he  hoped  that  the  king  would 
vouchsafe  to  acknowledge  his  services  by  bestowing 
the  Cross  upon  him. 

Truth  compels  us  to  state,  notwithstanding  the 
stain  that  this  meanness  of  spirit  leaves  upon  so 
estimable  a  character,  that  Major  Phellion  walked 
about  on  tiptoe  at  the  receptions  at  the  Tuileries; 
he  put  himself  forward,  watched  the  Citizen-King 
from  the  wings  when  he  sat  at  dinner,  engaged 
in  dark  schemes,  and  yet  had  not  succeeded  in 
obtaining  a  look  from  the  king  of  his  choice.  The 
worthy  man  had  more  than  once  thought  of  asking 
Minard  to  assist  in  furthering  his  secret  ambition. 

Phellion,  the  upholder  of  passive  obedience,  was 
an  absolute  stoic  in  the  matter  of  doing  his  duty, 
and  a  man  of  bronze  in  everything  in  which  his 
conscience  was  concerned.  To  conclude  this  sketch 
with  a  word  as  to  Phellion's  physical  appearance: 
at  fifty-nine  years  he  had  thickened,  to  use  a 
bourgeois  expression;  his  uninteresting,  pock- 
marked face  was  like  a  full  moon,  so  that  his  lips, 
once  unpleasantly  thick,  now  seemed  no  more  than 
ordinarily  so.  His  weak,  spectacled  eyes  no  longer 
exhibited  the  simplicity  of  their  faded  blue  and  no 
longer  aroused  a  smile;  his  grizzled  hair  had  at  last 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  1 29 

brought  an  expression  of  gravity  to  the  features 
which  once  bordered  close  on  idiocy,  and  readily  lent 
themselves  to  ridicule.  Time,  which  changes  for 
the  worse  faces  with  refined,  delicate  features,  has 
a  beneficial  effect  upon  those  which,  in  their  youth, 
are  drawn  upon  coarse  and  massive  lines,  as  was  the 
case  with  Phellion.  He  employed  the  leisure  of  his 
declining  years  composing  an  abridged  French  his- 
tory, for  Phellion  was  the  author  of  several  works 
adopted  by  the  University. 

When  La  Peyrade  made  his  appearance  the  whole 
family  was  together :  Madame  Barniol  had  come  to 
give  her  mother  the  latest  news  concerning  one  of 
her  children  who  was  slightly  indisposed.  The 
student  at  the  Academy  of  Roads  and  Bridges  was 
passing  the  day  at  home.  They  were  all  sitting, 
dressed  in  their  Sunday  best,  before  the  fire  in  the 
salon — finished  in  wood  painted  in  two  shades  of 
gray — upon  second-hand  wooden  arm-chairs,  and 
they  all  started  when  they  heard  the  voice  of  Gene- 
vieve,  the  cook,  announcing  the  individual  of  whom 
they  were  talking  that  moment  in  connection  with 
Celeste,  whom  Felix  Phellion  loved  so  dearly  that 
he  had  been  to  mass  to  see  her.  The  learned  mathe- 
matician had  made  that  effort  that  very  morning, 
and  they  were  joking  him  mildly  thereupon,  wish- 
ing that  Celeste  and  her  parents  would  realize  the 
value  of  the  treasure  that  was  offered  them. 

"Alas!  the  Thuilliers  seem  to  me  to  have  got  a 
very  dangerous  man  on  their  hands,"  said  Madame 
Phellion;  "he  gave  his  arm  to  Madame  Colleville 
9 


130  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

this  morning  and  they  went  off  to  the  Luxembourg 
together." 

"There's  something  wrong  about  that  lawyer," 
cried  Felix  Phellion;  "it  wouldn't  surprise  me  to 
learn  that  he  had  committed  a  crime. — " 

"You  go  too  far,"  said  Phellion  senior;  "he  is 
own  cousin  to  Tartuffe,  that  immortal  figure  done  in 
bronze  by  our  virtuous  Moliere,  for  virtue  and 
patriotism,  my  children,  were  the  foundation  of 
Moliere's  genius." 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Genevieve  entered  the 
room  and  said : 

"Monsieur  de  la  Peyrade  would  like  to  speak  to 
Monsieur." 

"To  me?"  cried  Monsieur  Phellion.  "Show  him 
in!"  he  added  with  the  solemn  manner  which,  when 
assumed  on  such  trifling  provocation,  made  him 
appear  a  little  ridiculous,  but  which  had  hitherto 
awed  his  family,  who  looked  upon  him  as  their  king. 

Phellion,  his  two  sons,  his  wife  and  his  daughter 
rose  and  received  the  advocate's  general  salutation. 

"To  what  do  we  owe  the  honor  of  your  visit, 
M6sieur?"  said  Phellion,  sternly. 

"To  your  eminence  in  the  quarter,  my  dear  Mon- 
sieur Phellion,  and  to  matters  of  public  interest," 
replied  Theodose. 

"Let  us  go  into  my  study,  then,"  said  Phel- 
lion. 

"No,  no,  my  dear,"  said  Madame  Phellion,  a 
short,  dried  up  little  woman,  flat  as  a  flounder, 
whose  face  never  lost  the  wrinkled  sternness  with 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  131 

which  she  gave  instruction  in  music  at  young 
ladies'  boarding-schools;  "no,  no,  we  will  leave 
you." 

An  upright  Erard  piano,  between  the  two  windows 
on  the  side  of  the  room  opposite  the  fire-place,  bore 
witness  to  the  devotion  of  the  virtuoso  to  her  favor- 
ite amusement 

"Must  I  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  send  you  away?" 
said  Theodose,  smiling  pleasantly  at  the  mother  and 
daughter.  "You  have  a  delightful  little  nook  here," 
he  continued,  "and  you  lack  nothing  now  but  a 
pretty  daughter-in-law  to  enable  you  to  pass  the  rest 
of  your  days  happily  in  that  aurea  mediocritas,  for 
which  the  Latin  poet  longed,  and  surrounded  by  the 
delights  of  family  life.  Your  past  is  eminently 
deserving  of  that  recompense,  for,  if  I  may  believe 
what  I  hear,  dear  Monsieur  Phellion,  you  are  both  a 
good  citizen  and  a  patriarch — " 

"Mosieur,"  said  Phellion,  much  embarrassed, 
"M&sieur,  I  have  done  my  duty,  nothing  more." 

At  the  word  daughter-in-law,  Madame  Barniol, 
who  was  as  like  her  mother  as  one  drop  of  water  is 
like  another,  glanced  at  Madame  Phellion  and  Felix 
with  an  expression  which  said:  "Can  we  have  been 
mistaken?" 

The  wish  to  discuss  the  incident  sent  the  mother 
and  her  three  children  into  the  garden,  for  the 
weather  was  quite  spring-like,  in  Paris,  at  least,  in 
March,  1840. 

"Major,"  said  Theodose,  when  he  was  alone  with 
the  worthy  bourgeois,  who  was  always  flattered  to 


132  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

be  so  addressed,  "I  wanted  to  talk  with  you  about 
the  election — " 

"Ah!  yes,  we  have  to  choose  a  member  of  the 
Municipal  Council,"  Phellion  interrupted. 

"Yes,  and  I  have  ventured  to  intrude  upon  your 
Sunday  privacy  in  connection  with  a  certain  person's 
candidacy;  after  all,  perhaps  we  sha'n't  have  to  go 
outside  the  family  circle." 

It  was  impossible  for  Phellion  to  be  more  Phellion 
than  Theodose  was  at  that  moment 

"I  won't  allow  you  to  say  a  word  more,"  rejoined 
the  Major,  taking  advantage  of  Theodose's  pause  to 
observe  the  effect  of  what  he  had  said;  "my  selec- 
tion is  made." 

"We  must  have  had  the  same  idea!"  cried  Theo- 
dose; "well-meaning  minds  may  think  alike  as  well 
as  great  minds." 

"I  don't  believe  in  that  phenomenon  in  this 
instance,"  replied  Phellion.  "This  district  has  been 
represented  in  the  municipal  government  by  the 
most  virtuous  of  men  as  he  was  the  greatest  of  mag- 
istrates, to  wit,  the  late  Monsieur  Popinot,  who  died 
a  councillor  of  the  royal  court.  When  his  place  had 
to  be  filled,  his  nephew,  who  inherited  his  benevo- 
lence, did  not  live  in  the  quarter;  but  since  then  he 
has  bought,  and  now  occupies,  the  house  where  his 
uncle  used  to  live  on  Rue  de  la  Montagne-Sainte- 
Genevieve;  he's  the  physician  at  the  Polytechnic 
School  and  at  one  of  our  hospitals;  he's  an  honor  to 
the  quarter ;  for  these  reasons,  and  to  do  honor  to 
the  uncle's  memory  in  the  person  of  the  nephew,  a 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  133 

few  of  the  electors  of  the  quarter  and  myself  have 
determined  to  bring  forward  Dr.  Horace  Bianchon, 
member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  as  you  know, 
and  one  of  the  younger  ornaments  of  the  illustrious 
Parisian  school. — A  man  isn't  great  in  our  eyes 
simply  because  he  is  famous,  and  the  late  Councillor 
Popinot,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  was  almost  a  Saint 
Vincent  de  Paul." 

"A  physician  isn't  an  administrator,"  replied 
Theodose,  "and  more  than  that  I  have  come  to  ask 
your  vote  for  a  man  to  whom  your  dearest  interests 
bid  you  to  sacrifice  a  mere  predilection,  which,  after 
all,  hasn't  any  special  reference  to  the  public  wel- 
fare." 

"Ah!  M&sieur!"  cried  Phellion,  rising  and 
assuming  the  attitude  of  Lafon  in  Le  Glorieux,  "do 
you  think  so  poorly  of  me  as  to  believe  that  personal 
interest  would  ever  influence  my  political  con- 
science? As  soon  as  the  public  good  is  in  question, 
I  am  a  good  citizen,  nothing  more  nor  less  than  that " 

Theodose  smiled  to  himself  at  the  thought  of  the 
combat  about  to  take  place  between  the  father  and 
the  citizen. 

"Don't  make  any  binding  agreements,  I  beg  you, " 
said  La  Peyrade,  "for  your  dear  Felix's  happiness 
is  deeply  concerned." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  demanded  Phel- 
lion, stopping  in  the  middle  of  his  salon  and  strik- 
ing an  attitude,  with  his  hand  thrust  in  his  waistcoat 
from  right  to  left, — a  gesture  copied  from  the  illus- 
trious Odilon  Barrot 


134  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Why,  I  come  to  you  in  behalf  of  our  mutual 
friend,  the  worthy  and  excellent  Monsieur  Thuillier, 
whose  control  over  the  destiny  of  pretty  Celeste 
Colleville  is  well  known ;  and  if,  as  I  assume,  your 
son,  a  young  man  of  whom  any  family  would  be 
proud,  and  whose  merit  is  incontestable,  is  paying 
court  to  Celeste  with  a  view  to  a  union  which  would 
meet  all  possible  requirements,  you  could  do  nothing 
better  calculated  to  earn  the  everlasting  gratitude  of 
the  Thuilliers  than  to  put  forward  your  worthy  friend 
for  the  suffrages  of  your  fellow-citizens.  So  far  as 
I  am  personally  concerned,  although  I  am  a  new- 
comer in  the  quarter,  I  might  undertake  to  do  it 
myself,  thanks  to  the  influence  I  have  acquired  by 
virtue  of  some  trifling  acts  of  kindness  among  the 
poorer  classes;  but  service  rendered  the  poor  makes 
but  little  impression  upon  those  who  are  more  com- 
fortably fixed,  and  then  any  such  notoriety  would  ill 
befit  my  modest  way  of  living.  I  have  consecrated 
my  life,  Monsieur,  to  the  service  of  the  weak,  like 
the  late  Councillor  Popinot,  a  sublime  man,  as  you 
were  saying;  and,  even  if  I  were  not  in  a  measure 
destined  for  a  religious  life,  which  has  but  little  in 
common  with  the  obligations  of  the  marriage  tie,  my 
inclination,  my  second  calling  would  be  to  the  ser- 
vice of  God,  to  the  Church. — I  don't  make  a  great 
noise,  as  the  false  philanthropists  do;  I  don't  write, 
but  I  act,  for  I  am  a  man  devoted  heart  and  soul  to 
the  practice  of  the  Christian  virtue  of  Charity.  I 
have  thought  that  I  could  detect  the  ambition  of  our 
friend  Thuillier,  and  I  intended  to  contribute  to  the 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  135 

happiness  of  two  beings  who  are  made  for  each  other, 
when  I  suggested  to  you  a  method  of  gaining  access 
to  Thuillier's  somewhat  cold  heart." 

Phellion  was  confounded  by  this  admirably  deliv- 
ered speech ;  he  was  dazzled  and  deeply  impressed ; 
but  he  remained  the  same  Phellion,  and  walked 
straight  up  to  the  advocate,  holding  out  his  hand, 
which  La  Peyrade  took  in  his. 

They  exchanged  such  a  handshake  as  was  com- 
monly exchanged,  about  August,  1830,  between  the 
bourgeoisie  and  the  men  of  the  future. 

"M6sieur,"  said  the  Major,  with  emotion,  "I 
misjudged  you.  This  that  you  have  done  me  the 
honor  to  confide  to  me  will  die  here! — "  pointing  to 
his  heart  "There  are  few  men  like  you,  but  those 
few  may  well  console  us  for  many  evils  which  are 
inherent  in  our  social  organization.  Good  men  are 
so  rare  that  it  is  natural  for  us  weak  creatures  to 
distrust  appearances.  You  have  a  friend  in  me,  if 
you  will  permit  me  to  do  myself  the  honor  of  assum- 
ing that  title. — But  you  will  know  me  better  in  time, 
Mosieur ;  1  should  lose  my  own  esteem  if  I  proposed 
Thuillier.  No,  my  son  shall  not  owe  his  happiness 
to  an  unworthy  action  on  his  father's  part — I  will 
not  change  my  candidate,  because  it  would  be  for  my 
son's  interest  that  I  should  do  so. — That  is  the  path 
of  virtue,  Mosieur!" 

La  Peyrade  took  out  his  handkerchief,  rubbed  his 
eyes  until  he  succeeded  in  producing  a  tear,  and 
said,  as  he  gave  his  hand  to  Phellion  and  turned 
away  his  head: 


1 36  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Your  words,  Monsieur,  tell  the  story  of  a  sublime 
struggle  between  private  interests  and  political  in- 
terests. Had  I  come  hither  only  to  see  this  sight, 
my  visit  would  not  be  wasted. — What  can  I  say?  in 
your  place,  1  should  do  as  you  have  done. — You  are 
that  greatest  of  God's  works,  a  good  man !  a  citizen 
a  la  Jean-Jacques!  With  many  citizens  of  his 
temper,  O  France !  O  my  country !  to  what  heights 
would  you  rise! — Nay,  Monsieur,  1  crave  the  honor 
of  being  your  friend." 

"What's  going  on  here?"  cried  Madame  Phellion, 
looking  through  the  window  at  this  moving  scene; 
"your  father  and  that  beast  of  a  man  are  em- 
bracing!" 

Phellion  and  the  advocate  left  the  salon  and 
joined  the  family  in  the  garden. 

"My  dear  Felix,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  waving 
his  hand  toward  La  Peyrade,  who  was  saluting 
Madame  Phellion,  "you  should  be  very  grateful  to 
this  excellent  young  man ;  he'll  do  you  more  good 
than  harm." 

The  advocate  walked  back  and  forth  beneath  the 
leafless  yews  for  five  minutes,  with  Madame  Barniol 
and  Madame  Phellion,  and,  in  view  of  the  grave 
dilemma  brought  about  by  Phellion's  political  pig- 
headedness,  gave  them  certain  counsel,  the  result  of 
which  was  certain  to  appear  during  the  evening,  its 
more  immediate  effect  being  to  convert  those  two 
ladies  into  ardent  admirers  of  his  talents,  his  frank- 
ness and  his  many  inestimable  qualities.  The  ad- 
vocate was  escorted  to  the  street-door  by  the  whole 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  137 

family  in  a  body,  and  every  eye  was  upon  him  until 
he  turned  into  Rue  Faubourg-Saint-Jacques.  As 
Madame  Phellion  took  her  husband's  arm  to  return 
to  the  salon,  she  said : 

"How's  this,  my  dear?  can  it  be  that  such  a  good 
father  as  you  are  will  allow  the  most  splendid  match 
our  Felix  could  make  to  fall  through  from  excess  of 
delicacy?" 

"My  love,"  replied  Phellion,  "the  great  men  of 
antiquity,  Brutus  and  the  rest,  were  never  fathers 
when  it  was  a  matter  of  proving  themselves  good 
citizens. — The  bourgeoisie  is  held  much  more  strictly 
to  the  practice  of  the  loftier  virtues  than  the  nobil- 
ity whose  shoes  it  is  called  upon  to  fill.  Monsieur 
de  Saint-Hilaire  didn't  think  of  the  arm  he  had  lost 
as  he  stood  beside  Turenne's  dead  body. — We  have 
to  prove  our  worthiness;  let  us  prove  it  at  every 
step  of  the  social  ladder.  Should  I  impress  these 
principles  upon  my  family,  to  disregard  them  my- 
self when  the  time  comes  to  apply  them  ? — No,  my 
love,  weep  to-day,  if  you  choose;  you  will  esteem 
me  for  it  to-morrow!—"  he  added,  seeing  that  his 
meagre  little  better-half  had  tears  in  her  eyes. 

These  noble  words  were  uttered  on  the  step  of  the 
door  above  which  was  written :  Aurea  Mediocritas. 

"1  should  have  added:  et  digna !"  said  Phellion, 
pointing  to  the  tablet,  "but  those  two  words  might 
seem  to  imply  self-praise." 

"Father,"  said  Marie-Theodore  Phellion,  the 
future  builder  of  roads  and  bridges,  when  all  the 
family  were  once  more  assembled  in  the  salon,  "it 


138  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

seems  to  me  that  there's  no  dishonor  in  changing 
one's  mind  in  the  matter  of  a  choice  between  two 
men,  when  the  public  welfare  is  not  concerned." 

"Not  concerned,  my  son!"  cried  Phellion. 
"Between  ourselves  I  may  say, — and  Felix  is  of 
the  same  opinion:  Monsieur  Thuillier  is  absolutely 
without  intellectual  resources;  he  knows  nothing! 
Monsieur  Horace  Bianchon  is  a  capable  man;  he 
will  obtain  a  hundred  things  for  our  arrondissement, 
and  Thuillier  not  one!  But  understand,  my  son, 
that  to  change  a  proper  decision  for  an  improper  one, 
for  selfish  reasons,  is  a  shameful  act  which  men 
cannot  control,  but  which  God  punishes.  I  am,  or 
I  think  I  am,  blameless  in  the  sight  of  my  con- 
science, and  I  owe  it  to  you  to  leave  an  unspotted 
reputation  behind  me.  So  nothing  will  make  me 
change  my  mind." 

"Oh!  dear  father,"  cried  little  Madame  Barniol, 
throwing  herself  on  a  cushion  at  Phellion's  feet, 
"don't  ride  such  a  high  horse!  There  are  plenty  of 
idiots  and  donkeys  in  the  Municipal  Council,  and 
France  goes  on  just  the  same.  Good  Thuillier  will 
vote  blindly  as  he's  told. — Just  remember  that 
Celeste  will  have  five  hundred  thousand  francs,  per- 
haps." 

"If  she  had  millions !"  said  Phellion,  "I'd  see  them 
— I  don't  care  where.  I  wouldn't  propose  Thuillier 
when  I  owe  it  to  the  memory  of  the  most  upright  of 
men  to  secure  the  election  of  Horace  Bianchon. 
Popinot  in  heaven  is  looking  on  and  applauding 
me !"  he  cried  excitedly.  "Such  reasoning  as  yours 


THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS  139 

is  what  degrades  France  and  brings  the  bourgeoisie 
into  disrepute." 

"Father  is  right,"  said  Felix,  emerging  from  a  fit 
of  deep  abstraction,  "and  he  deserves  our  love  and 
respect  as  he  has  done  throughout  his  modest,  busy, 
honorable  life.  I  would  not  owe  my  happiness  to 
anything  that  would  fill  his  soul  with  remorse,  nor 
to  intriguing  of  any  sort;  I  love  Celeste  as  well  as 
I  love  my  own  family,  but  I  place  my  father's  honor 
above  everything  and  the  moment  that  a  doubt 
springs  up  in  his  conscience, why,  we'll  say  no  more 
about  it" 

Phellion,  his  eyes  filled  with  tears,  rushed  to  his 
eldest  son  and  threw  his  arms  about  him. 

"My  son!  my  son!" — he  exclaimed  in  a  choking 
voice. 

"This  is  all  folly,"  said  Madame  Phellion  in 
Madame  Barniol's  ear;  "come  and  help  me  dress, 
we  must  put  an  end  to  this.  I  know  your  father ; 
he's  made  up  his  mind. — To  carry  out  the  plan  that 
exemplary  and  pious  young  man  suggested  to  us, 
Theodore,  1  may  need  your  assistance ;  so  be  ready, 
my  son." 

At  that  moment  Genevieve  appeared  and  handed 
Monsieur  Phellion  a  letter. 

"An  invitation  for  my  wife,  Felix  and  myself  to 
dine  at  the  Thuilliers',"  said  he. 


The  advocate's  superb  but  astounding  scheme  had 
upset  the  Thuillier  family  as  completely  as  it  did  the 
Phellions;  and  Jerome,  without  confiding  anything 
to  his  sister,  for  he  was  already  priding  himself  on 
keeping  faith  with  his  Mephistopheles,  went  home 
in  a  tremor  of  excitement 

"My  dear  little  girl,"  said  he  to  Brigitte — he 
always  appealed  to  her  heart  with  those  words, — 
"we  shall  have  some  big  wigs  to  dinner  to-day;  I 
am  going  to  invite  the  Minards,  so  take  care  about 
dinner;  I  am  writing  to  invite  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Phellion ;  it's  a  little  late  in  the  day,  but  we  needn't 
stand  on  ceremony  with  them. — As  for  the  Minards 
we  must  throw  a  little  dust  in  their  eyes,  for  1  need 
their  help." 

"Four  Minards,  three  Phellions,  four  Collevilles 
and  ourselves;  that  makes  thirteen — " 

"La  Peyrade,  fourteen,  and  it  may  be  well  to 
invite  Dutocq;  he  may  be  able  to  help  us,  too;  I'll 
go  up  there." 

"What  are  you  up  to  now?"  cried  his  sister; 
"fifteen  at  dinner;  there's  forty  francs  at  least 
thrown  into  the  gutter!" 

"Don't  fret  about  it,  little  one,  and  above  all 
things  make  yourself  agreeable  to  our  young  friend 
La  Peyrade.  There's  a  friend  indeed — you  shall 
(141) 


142  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

have  proof  of  it! — If  you  love  me,  look  after  him 
like  the  apple  of  your  eye." 

With  that  he  left  Brigitte  completely  dumfounded. 

"Oh!  yes,  I'll  wait  for  proofs!"  she  said  to  her- 
self. "I'm  not  to  be  caught  with  fine  words!  He's 
a  pleasant  fellow  enough,  but  before  I  take  him  to 
my  heart  I  must  study  him  a  little  more  closely." 

Having  invited  Dutocq,  Thuillier  arrayed  himself 
in  his  most  splendid  garb,  and  sallied  forth  to  the 
Minard  mansion  on  Rue  des  Macons-Sorbonne,  to 
fascinate  the  coarse  Zelie,  and  gloss  over  the  tardi- 
ness of  the  invitation. 

Minard  had  purchased  one  of  the  large,  sumptuous 
edifices  built  by  the  old  religious  orders  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Sorbonne,  and  as  he  ascended  a  flight 
of  massive  stone  steps  with  a  wrought-iron  railing 
which  proved  to  what  an  extent  the  arts  of  the 
second  order  flourished  under  Louis  XIII.,  Thuillier's 
heart  was  filled  with  envy  of  the  mayor's  abode  as 
well  as  of  his  official  position. 

The  vast  structure,  with  a  court-yard  in  front  and 
a  garden  behind,  was  distinguished  by  the  refine- 
ment and  nobility  of  style  characteristic  of  the  reign 
of  Louis  XIII.,  so  curiously  interposed  between  the 
wretched  taste  of  the  expiring  Renaissance  and  the 
grandeur  of  Louis  XIV.  at  the  dawn  of  his  career. 
This  transition  is  marked  by  many  still-existing 
monuments.  The  massive  scrolls  upon  the  facades, 
as  at  the  Sorbonne,  and  upon  the  pillars  straightened 
in  accordance  with  the  canons  of  Greek  art,  begin 
to  appear  in  the  architecture  of  this  period. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  143 

A  former  grocer,  a  lucky  swindler,  replaced  the 
reverend  manager  of  an  institution  called  in  former 
times  the  Economat,  a  dependency  of  the  general 
agency  of  the  old  French  clergy,  founded  by  the  far- 
sighted  genius  of  Richelieu.  Thuillier's  name  was 
enough  to  open  the  doors  of  the  salon,  where,  arrayed 
in  red  velvet  and  gold,  amid  a  profusion  of  magnifi- 
cent ornaments,  sat  a  poor  woman  who  weighed  very 
heavily  upon  the  hearts  of  princes  and  princesses  at 
the  popular  balls  at  the  Chateau. 

"Isn't  that  enough  to  justify  La  Caricature?"  said 
a  would-be  maid  of  honor  one  day,  with  a  smile  to  a 
duchess,  who  was  unable  to  repress  her  merriment 
at  the  sight  of  Zelie,  loaded  with  diamonds,  red 
as  a  poppy  squeezed  into  a  gaudy  dress,  and  rolling 
about  like  one  of  the  casks  of  wine  in  her  old  shop. 

"Will  you  forgive  me,  dear  madame,"  said  Thuil- 
lier,  assuming,  after  numerous  contortions,  attitude 
number  two  of  his  repertory  of  1807,  "for  leaving 
this  invitation  on  my  desk,  thinking  it  had  been 
sent? — It  is  for  to-day;  perhaps  I  am  too  late?" 

Zelie  looked  at  her  husband's  face  as  he  came 
forward  to  greet  Thuillier  before  she  replied: 

"We  were  to  go  and  look  at  an  estate  in  the  coun- 
try, and  dine  at  some  restaurant  haphazard,  but  we 
will  give  up  our  plan  the  more  willingly  as  I  con- 
sider it  infernally  vulgar  to  go  out  of  Paris  on  Sun- 
day." 

"We'll  have  a  little  gymnastics  on  the  piano  for 
the  young  people,  if  there  are  many  of  us,  as  I  sup- 
pose there  will  be!  I  have  said  a  word  to  Phellion; 


144  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

his  wife  is  intimate  with  Madame  Pron,  the  suc- 
cessor— successeur — ' ' 

"Successoress — successerice — ,"  interposed  Ma- 
dame Minard. 

"Why,  no,  it  would  be  successeresse,"  replied 
Thuillier,  "as  we  say  the  mairesse — the  succes- 
seresse of  Mademoiselle  Lagrave;  she  is  a  Barniol, 
you  know." 

"Must  I  dress?"  said  Madame  Minard. 

"Oh!  yes,  indeed!"  cried  Thuillier;  "if  you 
didn't  I  should  get  a  jolly  scolding  from  my  sister. 
— No,  it's  a  family  party!  Under  the  Empire, 
Madame,  people  got  to  know  one  another  at  balls. — 
In  those  great  days  a  fine  dancer  was  esteemed  as 
highly  as  a  good  soldier. — To-day,  we're  going  too 
much  into  the  positive — " 

"Let's  not  talk  politics,"  said  the  mayor,  with  a 
smile.  "The  king  is  a  great  and  a  clever  man, 
and  I  live  in  constant  admiration  of  my  day  and  of 
the  institutions  we  have  set  up  for  ourselves.  Then, 
too,  the  king  is  very  well  aware  what  he's  doing  by 
developing  our  manufactures;  he's  engaging  in  a 
hand-to-hand  struggle  with  England,  and  we  are 
doing  her  more  harm  during  this  fruitful  peace  than 
by  all  the  wars  of  the  Empire — " 

"What  a  deputy  Minard  would  make!"  cried  Zelie, 
naively;  "he's  practicing  speaking  at  home,  and 
you'll  help  us  to  get  him  elected,  won't  you,  Thuil- 
iiei  ?" 

"Let's  not  talk  politics,"  retorted  Thuillier; 
"come  at  five  o'clock?" — 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  145 

"Will  that  little  Vinet  be  there?"  asked  Minard; 
"he  came  on  Celeste's  account,  of  course." 

"He  may  as  well  put  on  mourning  for  her,"  replied 
Thuillier;  "Brigitte  won't  hear  his  name  men- 
tioned." 

Zelie  and  Minard  exchanged  a  smile  of  satisfac- 
tion. 

"To  think  that  we  must  associate  with  such  low 
creatures  for  our  son's  sake!"  cried  Zelie,  when 
Thuillier  was  on  the  staircase,  whither  the  mayor 
escorted  him. 

"Aha!  so  you  want  to  be  deputy!"  said  Thuillier 
to  himself  as  he  went  down  stairs.  "Nothing  will 
satisfy  these  grocers!  Great  God!  what  would 
Napoleon  say  to  see  power  in  the  hands  of  such  fel- 
lows ! — At  all  events,  I  am  a  legislator ! — What  a 
rival!  What  will  La  Peyrade  say? — " 

The  ambitious  deputy-chief  went  on  to  invite 
the  whole  Laudigeois  family  for  the  evening,  and 
thence  to  Colleville's,  to  make  sure  that  Celeste 
would  be  becomingly  dressed.  He  found  Flavie  in  a 
very  pensive  mood ;  she  hesitated  about  coming,  but 
Thuillier  put  an  end  to  her  indecision. 

"My  old  but  still  young  friend,"  said  he,  putting 
his  arm  about  her  waist,  for  she  was  alone  in  her 
room,  "I  do  not  propose  to  have  any  secrets  from 
you.  There's  some  talk  about  something  that 
would  be  a  big  thing  for  me. — I  can't  say  any  more, 
but  I  can  ask  you  to  be  particularly  agreeable  to  a 
certain  young  man. — " 

"Who?" 

10 


146  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Young  La  Peyrade." 

"Why  so,  Charles?" 

"Because  he  has  my  future  in  his  hands;  he's  a 
man  of  genius,  too.  Oh !  I  know  what  I'm  talking 
about. — He  has  this  sort  of  thing!"  said  Thuillier5 
going  through  the  motion  of  a  dentist  pulling  a  back 
tooth.  "We  must  make  sure  of  him,  Flavie! — but 
above  all  things  we  mustn't  let  him  see  anything, 
nor  let  him  suspect  the  secret  of  his  power. — With 
him  I  shall  be  giving  for  what  I  am  to  get." 

"Tell  me,  am  I  to  flirt  with  him  a  little?—" 

"Not  too  much,  my  angel,"  Thuillier  replied  with 
a  conceited  air. 

And  he  took  his  leave  without  noticing  the  sort  of 
stupefaction  which  seemed  to  have  seized  upon 
Flavie. 

"That  young  man  is  a  power,"  said  she  to  her- 
self.—"We  shall  see." 

That  was  why  she  wore  feathers  in  her  hair  and 
her  pretty  pink  and  gray  dress,  giving  a  glimpse  of 
her  white  shoulders  through  her  black  mantle,  and 
why  she  was  careful  to  keep  Celeste  in  a  short, 
high-necked  silk  dress  with  broad  tucker,  and  to 
have  her  hair  dressed  in  flat  braids  and  parted  in 
the  centre. 


At  half-past  four  Theodose  was  at  his  post;  he 
had  assumed  his  silly,  almost  servile  air  and  his 
softest  voice,  and  went  first  of  all  into  the  garden 
with  Thuillier. 

"My  friend,  I  have  no  doubt  of  your  triumph,  but 
I  feel  that  I  must  once  more  urge  you  to  say  abso- 
lutely nothing.  If  you  are  questioned  upon  any 
subject  whatever,  especially  concerning  Celeste, 
reply  evasively,  so  as  to  leave  the  questioner  in 
doubt;  you  must  have  learned  how  to  do  so  in  the 
department" 

"Agreed!"  replied  Thuillier.  "But  are  you  cer- 
tain?" 

"You'll  see  the  dessert  I  have  prepared  for  you. 
Above  all  things,  be  modest  Here  are  the  Minards; 
let  me  set  a  bait  for  them. — Bring  them  out  here 
and  then  clear  out" 

After  the  customary  greetings  La  Peyrade  took 
pains  to  keep  close  to  the  mayor,  and  at  the  first 
opportunity  led  him  aside. 

"Monsieur  le  Maire,"  said  he,  "it  can't  be  that 
a  man  of  your  consequence,  politically  speaking, 
comes  here  to  be  bored  without  some  object;  I  have 
no  purpose  to  pass  judgment  on  your  motives,  for 
I  haven't  the  slightest  right  to  do  so,  and  the  part  I 
play  here  is  one  of  non-interference  with  earthly 
powers;  but  I  beg  you  to  forgive  my  presumption, 
(147) 


148  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

and  to  deign  to  listen  to  a  word  of  advice  that  I 
make  bold  to  give  you.  If  I  do  you  a  favor  to-day, 
you  are  in  a  position  to  do  me  two  to-morrow;  and 
so,  if  it  happens  that  what  I  have  to  say  helps  you 
at  all,  I  am  listening  to  the  promptings  of  self- 
interest  when  I  say  it  Our  friend  Thuillier  is  in 
despair  because  he  is  nobody,  and  he  has  taken  it 
into  his  head  to  become  somebody,  a  personage  of 
consequence  in  his  arrondissement — " 

"Oho!"  exclaimed  Minard. 

"Oh!  he  doesn't  aim  high;  he  would  like  to  be 
chosen  a  member  of  the  Municipal  Council.  I  know 
that  Phellion,  realizing  the  power  such  a  service 
would  give  him,  proposes  to  bring  our  poor  friend 
forward  as  a  candidate.  Very  good ;  you  may  pos- 
sibly find  it  essential  to  the  success  of  your  plans  to 
get  the  start  of  him  in  this.  Thuillier's  election 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  favorable  to  you — 1  mean 
agreeable;  and  he'll  hold  up  his  end  in  the  Council ; 
there  are  smaller  men  than  he  there.  Moreover,  if 
he  is  indebted  to  you  for  such  a  lift,  he  will  cer- 
tainly look  at  things  through  your  eyes ;  he  will  con- 
sider you  one  of  the  principal  lights  of  the  city." 

"My  dear  fellow,  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you," 
said  Minard;  "you  have  rendered  me  a  service  for 
which  I  can  never  be  grateful  enough  and  which 
proves — " 

"That  I  do  not  like  those  Phellions,"  interposed 
La  Peyrade,  availing  himself  of  a  momentary  hesi- 
tation on  the  part  of  the  mayor,  who  was  afraid 
of  saying  something  in  which  the  advocate  might 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  149 

detect  a  flavor  of  contempt ;  "I  hate  people  who  make 
such  a  parade  of  their  honesty,  and  coin  money 
with  noble  sentiments." 

"You  know  them  well,"  said  Minard;  "they're 
sycophants!  That  fellow  for  ten  years  past  has 
been  making  a  fool  of  himself  over  this  bit  of  red 
ribbon,"  added  the  mayor,  pointing  to  his  button- 
hole. 

"Be  careful!"  said  the  advocate,  "his  son  is  in 
love  with  Celeste,  and  he  holds  the  citadel." 

"True,  but  my  son  has  twelve  thousand  a  year  of 
his  own." 

"Upon  my  word!"  exclaimed  the  advocate  with 
a  bound;  "why,  Mademoiselle  Brigitte  told  me  the 
other  day  that  she  was  determined  that  Celeste's 
husband  should  have  at  least  as  much  as  that  But 
before  six  months  are  gone  you'll  find  thatThuillier 
owns  real  estate  worth  forty  thousand  a  year." 

"Deuce  take  me !  I  suspected  as  much !"  rejoined 
the  mayor.  "Well,  he  shall  be  a  member  of  the 
Municipal  Council." 

"Whatever  happens,  don't  mention  my  name  to 
him,"  said  the  poor  man's  lawyer,  turning  away  to 
greet  Madame  Phellion.— "Well,  my  dear  lady,  did 
you  succeed?" 

"I  waited  until  four  o'clock,  but  the  excellent 
man  wouldn't  let  me  finish ;  he  is  too  busy  to  accept 
such  a  position,  and  Monsieur  Phellion  has  read  the 
letter  in  which  Doctor  Bianchon  thanks  him  for  his 
kind  intentions  and  says  that,  so  far  as  he  is 
concerned,  his  candidate  is  Monsieur  Thuillier.  He 


150  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

is  exerting  his  influence  in  his  favor  and  begs  my 
husband  to  do  the  same." 

"What  did  your  admirable  spouse  say  to  that?" 

"  'I  did  my  duty,'  he  said;  'I  haven't  betrayed  my 
conscience,  and  now  1  am  all  for  Thuillier.'  " 

"Well,  everything's  all  right  then,"  said  La  Pey- 
rade.  "Just  forget  my  visit  and  take  all  the  credit 
of  the  idea  to  yourself." 

With  that  he  walked  toward  Madame  Colleville, 
assuming  a  most  respectful  bearing  as  he  approached 
her. 

"Madame,"  said  he,  "be  good  enough  to  bring 
good  Papa  Colleville  here  a  moment;  there's  a 
surprise  in  store  for  Thuillier,  and  he  must  be  in  the 
secret." 

While  La  Peyrade  was  exerting  his  artistic  talent 
upon  Colleville  and  indulging  in  divers  very  clever 
jests  as  he  explained  the  proposed  candidacy  to  him 
and  told  him  that  he  ought  to  support  it  as  a  family 
affair  if  for  no  other  reason,  Flavie  was  listening, 
stupefied  and  with  tingling  ears,  to  the  following 
conversation  in  the  salon : 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  Messieurs  Colleville 
and  La  Peyrade  are  talking  about  to  make  them 
laugh  so  much,"  said  Madame  Thuillier  stupidly, 
looking  through  the  window. 

"They're  talking  nonsense,  as  all  men  do  among 
themselves,"  replied  Mademoiselle  Thuillier,  who 
not  infrequently  attacked  the  other  sex  with  the 
natural  instinct  of  old  maids. 

'''He  is  incapable  of  it,"  said  Phellion,  gravely, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  I$I 

"for  Monsieur  de  la  Peyrade  is  one  of  the  most 
talented  young  men  I  ever  met  Every  one  knows 
how  much  I  think  of  Felix:  well,  I  place  him  on  the 
same  level,  and  1  would  even  be  glad  to  know  that 
my  son  had  a  little  of  Monsieur  Theodose's  exem- 
plary piety!" 

"He  is,  in  truth,  a  man  of  merit,  and  he'll  make 
his  mark,"  observed  Minard.  "So  far  as  my  vote- 
it  would  be  unseemly  to  say  my  patronage — is  con- 
cerned, it's  at  his  service—" 

"He  pays  more  for  lamp-oil  than  for  bread,'* 
said  Dutocq;  "I  know  that" 

"His  mother,  if  he's  lucky  enough  to  have  one, 
must  be  very  proud  of  him,"  said  Madame  Phellion, 
sententiously. 

"He's  a  downright  treasure  to  us,"  said  Thuil- 
lier,  "and  if  you  knew  how  modest  he  is !  he  doesn't 
make  the  best  of  himself." 

"The  one  thing  I  can  answer  for,"  chimed  in 
Dutocq,  "is  that  no  young  man  ever  maintained  a 
nobler  attitude  in  poverty,  and  he  triumphed  over 
it;  but  he  has  suffered,  any  one  can  see  that." 

"Poor  fellow!"  cried  Zelie;  "oh!  such  things 
make  me  ill!" — 

"You  can  safely  trust  your  secrets  or  your  for- 
tune  to  him,"  said  Thuillier,  "and  in  these  days 
that's  the  highest  praise  one  can  give  a  man." 
"Colleville  makes  him  laugh,"  cried  Dutocq. 
At  that  moment  Colleville  and  La  Peyrade  were 
returning  from   the   end  of  the   garden,  the   best 
friends  imaginable. 


I$2  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

•'Messieurs!"  said  Brigitte,  "the  soup  and  the 
king  must  not  be  kept  waiting;  give  your  hands  to 
the  ladies!" 

Five  minutes  after  uttering  this  jest,  a  reminis- 
cence of  her  life  in  the  porter's  lodge,  Brigitte  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  her  table  surrounded  by  the 
leading  characters  of  this  drama,  all  of  whom,  by 
the  way,  both  great  and  small,  except  the  repulsive 
Cerizet,  her  salon  was  to  contain  that  evening. 
It  may  be  that  the  old  bag-maker's  portrait  would  be 
incomplete  if  we  should  omit  a  description  of  one  of 
her  best  dinners.  Moreover,  the  features  of  the 
bourgeois  cook  of  1840  are  among  the  details  most 
essential  to  the  history  of  manners,  and  observing 
housekeepers  may  glean  some  information  there- 
from. A  woman  does  not  spend  twenty  years  mak- 
ing bags  without  looking  for  a  way  to  fill  one  now 
and  then.  Now  there  was  this  peculiarity  about 
Brigitte,  she  united  the  economy  which  is  the 
foundation  of  fortune  with  a  thorough  understanding 
of  what  expenses  were  necessary.  Her  comparative 
prodigality,  when  her  brother's  needs  or  Celeste's 
were  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  was  the  very 
antipodes  of  avarice.  Indeed  she  often  complained 
because  she  was  not  a  miser.  At  her  last  dinner- 
party she  had  told  how,  after  struggling  with  herself 
for  ten  minutes  and  suffering  martyrdom,  she  had 
finally  given  ten  francs  to  a  poor  working-girl  of  the 
quarter  who  had,  as  she  knew,  fasted  for  two  days. 

"Nature,"  said  she  naively,  "was  stronger  than 
common  sense." 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  153 

The  soup  was  almost  colorless;  for  even  on  an 
occasion  of  this  sort  the  cook  was  enjoined  to  make 
a  large  quantity  of  soup;  and  as  the  beef  was  to 
furnish  food  for  the  family  on  the  two  following 
days,  the  less  strength  it  furnished  to  the  soup  the 
more  nourishing  power  it  retained.  The  beef, 
cooked  but  little,  was  always  taken  away  when 
Brigitte  remarked,  as  her  brother  plunged  the  knife 
into  it: 

"I  think  it's  rather  tough;  anyway  let  it  go, 
Thuillier,  no  one  will  eat  it,  and  we  have  something 
else." 

The  soup  was,  on  this  occasion,  flanked  by  four 
dishes  perched  upon  old  worn  silver  chafing-dishes. 
At  this  dinner,  called  the  dinner  of  the  candidacy, 
the  first  course  consisted  of  two  ducks  with  olives 
opposite  a  large  meat-pie  with  quenelles,  and  an  eel 
a  la  tartare  opposite  a  fricandeau  of  veal  with 
chicory.  The  second  course  had  for  a  centre-piece 
a  lordly  goose  stuffed  with  chestnuts,  on  one  side 
of  which  was  a  lettuce  salad  garnished  with  rounds 
of  beetroot,  on  the  other  side  jars  of  cream,  and  at 
the  ends  turnips  au  sucre  facing  a  timbale  of  maca- 
roni. This  typical  dinner  of  the  concierge  who 
caters  for  weddings  and  birthday  parties  cost  twenty 
francs  at  most,  and  the  remains  kept  the  whole 
household  two  days.  But  Brigitte  would  say: 

"Bless  me!  when  one  entertains,  the  money  flies! 
—it's  frightful !" 

The  table  was  lighted  by  two  horrible  four- 
branched  candelabra  of  silvered  copper,  in  which 


154  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

were  burning  the  economical  candles  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Aurora.  The  linen  was  of  dazzling 
whiteness;  the  old-fashioned  silver-plate  was  part 
of  the  paternal  inheritance,  purchased  during  the 
Revolution  by  Pere  Thuillier,  and  used  by  him  in 
the  restaurant  kept  by  him  under  another  name  in 
his  lodge;  these  restaurants  were  abolished  in  1816 
in  all  the  departments.  Thus  the  good  cheer  was 
in  harmony  with  the  dining-room,  with  the  house 
itself,  and  with  the  Thuilliers,  who  were  not  likely 
to  rise  above  this  level.  The  Minards,  the  Colle- 
villes,  and  La  Peyrade  exchanged  glances  which 
denoted  that  the  same  sarcastic  thought  was  in  all 
their  minds.  They  alone  knew  what  luxury  really 
was,  and  the  Minards  scarcely  concealed  their  motive 
in  accepting  an  invitation  to  such  a  repast  La 
Peyrade,  seated  beside  Flavie,  whispered  in  her 
ear: 

"Confess  that  they  are  sadly  in  need  of  being 
taught  how  to  live,  and  that  you  and  Colleville  are 
feeding  on  what  is  known  as  mad  cow,*  an  old 
acquaintance  of  mine!  But  those  Minards — what 
ghastly  cupidity !  Your  daughter  would  be  forever 
lost  to  you ;  these  parvenus  have  all  the  vices  of  the 
great  nobles  of  the  old  days  without  their  refinement 
Their  son,  who  has  twelve  thousand  a  year,  can  find 
women  enough  in  the  Potasse  family  without  their 
dragging  the  rake  of  their  speculation  through  this 

*  To  feed  on  mad  cow  (manger  de  la  vache  enragee)  is  an  idiomatic  expression 
meaning  to  be  reduced  to  the  point  of  eating  the  meat  of  a  cow  that  had  gone 
mad,  that  is  to  say,  to  be  reduced  to  extreme  destitution. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  155 

house.  What  fun  it  is  to  play  on  such  fellows  as 
one  plays  on  a  tuba  or  a  clarionet!" 

Flavie  listened  with  a  smile  on  her  face,  and  did 
not  take  her  foot  away  when  Theodose  rested  his 
lightly  upon  it. 

"That's  just  to  tell  you  what's  going  on,"  said 
he;  "we'll  communicate  by  the  pedal;  you  must 
know  me  by  heart  since  this  morning,  and  I'm  not 
the  man  to  indulge  in  such  trifling — ." 

Flavie  was  not  mistaken  as  to  Theodose's  supe- 
riority ;  his  keen,  off-hand  manner  dazzled  her,  and 
the  clever  prestidigitator  had  offered  battle  in  such 
a  way  as  to  put  her,  so  to  speak,  between  yes  and 
no;  she  must  either  accept  or  reject  him  abso- 
lutely; and,  as  his  whole  conduct  was  carefully 
planned  beforehand,  he  watched  with  a  mild  eye, 
but  with  mental  shrewdness,  the  results  of  his  fas- 
cination. 

While  they  were  removing  the  dishes  after  the 
second  course,  Minard,  fearing  that  Phellion  might 
anticipate  him,  addressed  Thuillier  with  a  solemn 
face. 

"My  dear  Thuillier,"  said  he,  "my  reason  for 
accepting  your  invitation  to  dinner  was  that  there 
is  an  important  communication  to  be  made  to  you, 
a  communication  so  honorable  to  you  it  should  be 
made  in  the  presence  of  all  your  guests." 

Thuillier  turned  pale. 

"You  have  obtained  the  Cross  for  me  ? — "  he  cried, 
receiving  a  glance  from  Theodose,  and  desirous  to 
show  him  that  he  did  not  lack  finesse. 


156  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"You  will  have  it  some  day,"  the  mayor  replied; 
"but  I  refer  to  something  better  than  that.  The 
Cross  is  a  mere  favor  due  to  a  minister's  good-will, 
while  in  this  case  it's  a  matter  of  an  election  in 
which  the  assent  of  all  your  fellow-citizens  is  con- 
cerned. In  a  word,  a  sufficient  number  of  the  elec- 
tors of  your  arrondissement  are  looking  to  you,  and 
desire  to  honor  you  with  their  confidence  by  entrust- 
ing to  you  the  representation  of  this  arrondissement 
in  the  Municipal  Council  of  Paris,  which  is,  as  every- 
one knows,  the  General  Council  of  the  Seine — " 

"Bravo!"  shouted  Dutocq. 

Phellion  rose. 

"Monsieur  le  Maire  has  anticipated  me,"  he 
said,  in  a  voice  trembling  with  emotion,  "but  it  is 
so  flattering  to  our  friend  to  be  solicited  by  all  good 
citizens  at  one  and  the  same  time  and  to  hear  the 
voice  of  the  public  speaking  from  all  parts  of  the 
capital,  that  I  cannot  complain  of  having  to  take  the 
second  place,  and  besides,  it  is  for  those  in  high 
office  to  take  the  initiative! — "  here  he  bowed 
respectfully  to  Minard— "Yes,  Mosieur  Thuillier, 
several  electors  think  of  bestowing  their  votes  upon 
you,  in  that  part  of  the  district  where  I  have  set  up 
my  humble  household  gods,  and  you  have  this 
special  advantage,  that  your  name  was  suggested  to 
them  by  an  illustrious  man," — Sensation. — "by  a 
man,  in  whose  person  we  are  glad  to  honor  one  of 
the  most  estimable  inhabitants  of  the  arrondisse- 
ment, who  was  twenty  years  its  father — 1  refer  to 
the  late  Monsieur  Popinot,  in  his  lifetime  councillor 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  157 

at  the  royal  court  and  our  mouthpiece  in  the  Munic- 
ipal Council.  But  his  nephew,  Doctor  Bianchon, 
one  of  those  men  who  reflect  glory  upon  us,  has 
declined,  on  account  of  his  engrossing  occupations, 
the  responsibility  which  might  have  been  thrust 
upon  him ;  while  thanking  us  for  our  homage,  he 
suggests — mark  what  I  say — he  suggests  Monsieur 
le  Maire's  candidate  as  a  proper  person  to  be  voted 
for,  as  being,  in  his  opinion,  the  best  fitted,  by  reason 
of  his  long  experience  in  the  office  he  so  lately 
quitted,  to  perform  the  duties  of  a  municipal  magis- 
trate!" 

Phellion  resumed  his  seat  amid  murmurs  of  ap- 
probation. 

"Thuillier,  you  can  count  on  your  old  friend," 
said  Colleville. 

At  that  moment  the  attention  of  all  the  guests 
was  attracted  to  the  affecting  spectacle  presented  by 
old  Brigitte  and  Madame  Thuillier.  The  tears  were 
slowly  following  one  another  down  Brigitte's  cheeks, 
which  were  as  white  as  if  she  were  on  the  point  of 
fainting, — tears  of  profound  joy  they  were, — while 
Madame  Thuillier  sat  with  fixed  eyes,  as  though 
thunderstruck.  Suddenly  the  old  maid  darted  into 
the  kitchen,  crying  to  Josephine: 

"Come  to  the  cellar  with  me,  my  girl ! — we  must 
have  some  of  the  wine  from  behind  the  wood- 
pile!" 

"My  friends,"  said  Thuillier,  with  deep  emotion, 
"this  is  the  happiest  day  of  my  life,  happier  even 
than  the  day  of  my  election  will  be,  if  1  can  make  up 


158  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

my  mind  to  submit  myself  to  the  suffrages  of  my 
fellow-citizens  (Hear!  hear!),  for  I  feel  that  I  am 
pretty  well  worn  out  by  thirty  years  of  public  ser- 
vice, and  you  will  agree  that  an  honorable  man 
should  consult  his  strength  and  his  capabilities 
before  assuming  the  duties  of  a  municipal  magis- 
trate,—" 

"I  expected  no  less  from  you,  MSsieur  Thuillier!" 
cried  Phellion.  "I  beg  pardon!  this  is  the  first 
time  in  my  life  that  I  ever  interrupted  anybody, 
and  a  former  superior,  too;  but  there  are  circum- 
stances— " 

"Accept!  accept!"  cried  Zelie;  "God  bless  my 
soul !  we  need  men  like  you  to  govern  us." 

"Make  up  your  mind,  my  chief!"  said  Dutocq; 
"long  live  the  future  municipal  councillor! — But  we 
haven't  anything  to  drink — " 

"Well,  it's  settled  that  you  are  our  candidate?" 
said  Minard. 

"You  expect  a  good  deal  of  me,"  replied  Thuil- 
lier. 

"Nonsense!"  cried  Colleville;  "a  man  who's 
slaved  thirty  years  in  the  Treasury  Department 
will  be  a  treasure  for  the  city!" 

"You're  much  too  modest!"  said  Minard  the 
younger;  "your  capacity  is  well  known  to  us;  it 
has  become  proverbial  in  the  department — " 

"It  will  be  your  own  fault! — "  cried  Thuillier. 

"The  king  will  be  well  pleased  with  our  selection, 
I  can  promise  you  that,"  said  Minard,  puffing  out  his 
chest 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  159 

"Messieurs, "  said  La  Peyrade,  "will  you  permit  a 
newcomer  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- Jacques  to  make 
one  observation  not  altogether  unimportant?" 

The  universal  appreciation  of  the  young  advo- 
cate's abilities  caused  his  remarks  to  be  awaited  in 
absolute  silence. 

"The  influence  of  his  Honor,  the  mayor  of  the 
neighboring  arrondissement,  which  is  very  great  in 
our  own,  where  he  is  so  pleasantly  remembered; 
the  influence  of  Monsieur  Phellion,  the  oracle — I 
will  tell  the  truth,"  he  added,  as  Phellion  raised  his 
hand,  "the  oracle  of  his  battalion ;  the  no  less  potent 
influence  which  Monsieur  Colleville  owes  to  his  out- 
spokenness and  his  urbanity;  the  equally  efficacious 
influence  of  our  friend,  the  clerk  to  the  justice  of  the 
peace,  and  the  slight  efforts  I  am  able  to  make  in  my 
limited  sphere  of  activity,  are  pledges  of  success; 
but  they  are  not  success! — In  order  to  obtain  a  swift 
and  complete  triumph,  we  ought  all  to  agree  to 
maintain  the  strictest  secrecy  as  to  the  manifesta- 
tion that  has  taken  place  here. — We  should  arouse, 
without  knowing  it  or  intending  to  do  it,  envy  and 
the  lesser  passions  which  would  eventually  throw 
obstacles  in  our  way.  The  political  force  of  the 
new  social  organization,  its  very  foundations  and 
the  guaranty  of  its  existence  lie  in  a  certain  divi- 
sion of  power  with  the  middle-class,  the  real  living 
force  of  modern  society,  the  abode  of  morality,  right 
feeling  and  intelligent  toil;  but  we  can  not  blind 
our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  extension  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  election  to  almost  all  offices  has  caused 


160  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

the  incitements  of  ambition  and  the  rage  to  be 
something,  excuse  the  expression,  to  penetrate 
to  social  depths  which  should  be  beyond  their 
reach.  Some  people  see  in  this  state  of  things 
an  advantage,  others  an  evil;  it  isn't  for  me  to 
decide  the  question  in  presence  of  those  to  whose 
superior  wisdom  I  gladly  bow;  I  am  content  if  I 
have  so  stated  it  as  to  make  clear  the  risk  our 
friend's  standard  may  have  to  run.  For  instance, 
our  late  honorable  representative  in  the  Municipal 
Council  has  been  dead  hardly  a  week,  and  already 
the  arrondissement  is  aroused  by  the  ambition  of 
second-rate  men.  They  are  determined  to  put 
themselves  on  exhibition  at  any  price.  The  order 
for  a  new  election  may  not  take  effect  for  a  month. 
Think  how  many  intrigues  will  be  set  on  foot  in 
that  time ! — Let  us  not,  I  beg,  set  up  our  friend 
Thuillier  for  a  target  for  his  rivals!  let  us  not 
abandon  him  to  public  discussion,  that  modern 
harpy  which  is  simply  the  speaking-trumpet  of 
slander  and  envy,  the  pretext  grasped  by  one's 
enemies  to  debase  everything  great,  defame  every- 
thing worthy  of  respect,  dishonor  everything  sacred ; 
— let  us  do  as  a  third  part  of  the  Chamber  does — 
hold  our  tongues  and  vote." 

"He  speaks  well,"  said  Phellion  to  his  neighbor 
Dutocq. 

"And  what  a  lot  he  knows! — " 

Minard's  son  had  turned  green  and  yellow  with 
envy. 

"That's  well  said  and  true!"  cried  Minard. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  161 

"Unanimously  agreed,"  said  Colleville;  "Mes- 
sieurs, we  are  honorable  men,  and  it's  enough  for 
us  to  understand  one  another  on  this  matter." 

"He  who  wishes  to  accomplish  a  thing  must 
adopt  the  proper  means,"  said  Phellion,  emphat- 
ically. 


ii 


At  this  juncture  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  appeared 
followed  by  her  two  servants ;  she  had  the  key  of 
the  cellar  thrust  in  her  girdle,  and  three  bottles  of 
champagne,  three  of  old  Hermitage,  and  one  of 
Malaga  were  placed  on  the  table;  but  she  carried  in 
her  own  hands  with  something  like  veneration  a 
small  bottle,  of  slender,  delicate  shape,  which  she 
placed  in  front  of  herself.  Amid  the  hilarity  caused 
by  this  abundance  of  good  things  which  the  old 
maid  was  induced  by  her  gratitude  to  produce,  and 
which,  in  her  excitement,  she  distributed  with  a 
profusion  which  amounted  to  condemnation  of  her 
stingy  fortnightly  hospitality,  numerous  varieties 
of  dessert  arrived:  heaps  of  raisins,  figs,  almonds 
and  filberts,  pyramids  of  oranges,  sweetmeats  and 
preserved  fruits  produced  from  the  inmost  depths  of 
her  cupboards,  and  which  would  never  have  graced 
her  cloth  except  for  this  happy  occurrence. 

"Celeste,  Josephine  will  bring  you  a  bottle  of  eau- 
de-vie  my  father  had  in  1802;  make  an  orange  salad 
with  it!"  she  cried  to  her  sister-in-law. — "Monsieur 
Phellion,  pour  the  champagne;  that  bottle  is  for  you 
three. — Monsieur  Dutocq,  take  this! — Monsieur 
Colleville,  you  know  how  to  make  corks  fly! — " 

The  two  maids  distributed  champagne  glasses, 
claret  glasses  and  liqueur  glasses,  for  Josephine  had 
produced  three  bottles  of  claret 


164  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Bottled  in  the  year  of  the  comet!"  cried  Thuil- 
lier.  "Messieurs,  you  have  driven  my  sister  out  of 
her  head." 

"And  this  evening  we'll  have  punch  and  cake," 
said  she.  "1  have  sent  to  the  druggist's  for  some 
tea.  Mon  Dieu !  if  I'd  known  there  was  to  be  an 
election,"  she  cried,  looking  at  her  sister-in-law, 
"I'd  have  had  the  turkey—" 

This  remark  was  greeted  with  general  laughter. 

"Oh!  but  we  had  a  goose,"  said  Minard  junior 
laughing. 

"The  world's  coming  to  an  end!"  cried  Madame 
Thuillier,  as  iced  chestnuts  and  meringues  were 
served. 

Mademoiselle  Thuillier's  face  was  on  fire;  she 
was  superb;  never  did  sister  love  take  so  furious 
an  expression. 

"It's  very  touching  to  anyone  who  knows  her!" 
cried  Madame  Colleville. 

The  glasses  were  full,  the  guests  were  looking  at 
one  another  as  if  awaiting  a  toast,  and  La  Peyrade 
said: 

"Messieurs,  let  us  drink  to  something  sub- 
lime!—" 

Everybody  was  amazed. 

"To  Mademoiselle  Brigitte! — " 

They  rose  and  jingled  their  glasses,  and  cried: 
"Vive  Mademoiselle  Thuillier!"  in  the  enthusiasm 
produced  by  real  emotion. 

"Messieurs,"  said  Phellion,  reading  from  a  paper 
on  which  some  lines  were  written  in  pencil,  "to 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  165 

hard  work  and  its  glorious  results,  in  the  person  of 
our  former  comrade,  now  one  of  the  mayors  of 
Paris,  Monsieur  Minard,  and  his  wife!" 

After  five  minutes  of  general  conversation,  Thuil- 
lier  rose. 

"Messieurs,"  said  he,  "to  the  king  and  royal 
family ! — I  say  no  more,  for  the  toast  says  all  that  is 
necessary." 

"To  my  brother's  election!"  said  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier. 

"I  am  going  to  make  you  laugh,"  La  Peyrade 
whispered  to  Flavie;  and  he  rose  to  his  feet. 

"To  the  ladies!  to  the  fascinating  creatures  to 
whom  we  owe  so  much  pleasure,  to  say  nothing  of 
our  mothers,  our  sisters  and  our  wives! — " 

This  toast  aroused  general  mirth,  and  Colleville, 
who  was  beginning  to  be  very  merry,  shouted: 

"Villain!  you  took  the  words  out  of  my  mouth!" 

The  mayor  rose  and  profound  silence  reigned. 

"Messieurs,  to  our  institutions!  to  them  we  owe 
the  strength  and  grandeur  of  dynastic  France!" 

The  bottles  disappeared  amid  a  chorus  of  admira- 
tion of  the  amazing  good-tellowship  and  subtlety  of 
the  liquids. 

"Mamma,  may  I  propose  a  toast?"  said  Celeste 
Colleville,  timidly. 

The  poor  girl  had  noticed  the  bewildered  face  of  her 
godmother,  utterly  unnoticed,  though  she  was  the 
mistress  of  the  house,  and  almost  reminding  one  of 
a  dog  uncertain  what  master  to  obey,  as  she  looked 
from  her  terrible  sister-in-law's  face  to  Thuillier's, 


166  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

watching  their  expressions  and  entirely  oblivious 
of  herself;  but  the  joy  depicted  upon  those  docile 
features,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  express  noth- 
ing, to  repress  all  evidence  of  thought  or  feeling, 
produced  the  effect  of  a  pale  sun  shining  through 
a  winter  mist:  it  cast  a  dim,  regretful  light  upon 
that  flabby,  faded  flesh.  The  gauze  cap  trimmed 
with  sombre  flowers,  the  disheveled  hair,  the  dun- 
colored  dress  whose  only  ornament  was  a  heavy  gold 
chain — everything  about  her,  even  to  her  face, 
increased  the  affection  felt  for  her  by  young 
Celeste,  who,  alone  in  all  the  world,  really  knew 
the  worth  of  this  tongue-tied  creature,  who  knew 
everything  that  was  going  on  about  her,  to  whom 
everything  brought  suffering,  and  who  sought  con- 
solation in  her  and  in  God. 

"Let  the  dear  child  propose  her  little  toast,"  said 
La  Peyrade  to  Madame  Colleville. 

"Go  on,  my  dear,"  cried  Colleville;  "there's 
some  Hermitage  left,  and  it's  hoary  with  age!" 

"To  my  dear  godmother!"  said  the  girl,  lowering 
her  glass  respectfully  before  Madame  Thuillier,  and 
handing  it  to  her. 

The  poor  terrified  woman  looked  first  at  her  sister, 
then  at  her  husband,  through  a  veil  of  tears ;  but  her 
position  in  the  family  was  so  well  known,  and  there 
was  something  so  touching  in  the  homage  paid  by  in- 
nocence to  weakness,  that  the  emotion  was  general ; 
all  the  men  rose  and  bowed  to  Madame  Thuillier. 

"Ah!  Celeste,  I  wish  I  had  a  kingdom  to  lay  at 
your  feet!"  said  Felix  Phellion. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  167 

Honest  Phellion  wiped  away  a  tear,  and  even 
Dutocq  was  moved. 

"What  a  dear,  lovely  child!"  said  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier,  leaving  her  seat,  to  go  and  kiss  her  sister- 
in-law. 

"My  turn!"  said  Colleville,  assuming  an  ath- 
letic pose.  "Listen  to  me!  To  friendship! — 
Empty  your  glasses!  fill  your  glasses! — Good!  To 
the  fine  arts!  the  flower  of  social  life. — Empty  your 
glasses!  fill  your  glasses! — To  a  feast  like  this  on 
the  day  after  election!" 

"What's  that  little  bottle?—"  Dutocq  inquired 
of  Mademoiselle  Thuillier. 

"It's  one  of  my  three  bottles  of  Madame  Am- 
phoux's  liqueur,"  she  replied;  "the  second  is  for 
Celeste's  wedding-day,  and  the  third  for  the  day 
her  first  child  is  baptized." 

"My  sister  has  almost  lost  her  head,"  said  Thuil- 
lier to  Colleville. 

The  dinner  was  brought  to  an  end  by  a  toast  pro- 
posed by  Thuillier,  to  whom  it  was  suggested  by 
Theodose  when  the  Malaga  shone  in  the  liqueur 
glasses  like  so  many  rubies. 

"Colleville,  Messieurs,  drank  to  friendship;  1  drink 
to  my  friends,  in  this  generous  wine." 

A  burst  of  warm  applause  greeted  this  bit  of  sen- 
timent; but,  as  Dutocq  whispered  to  Theodose: 

"It's  a  crime  to  furnish  such  Malaga  as  this  to 
gullets  of  the  lowest  order. — " 

"Ah!  if  we  could  only  imitate  this,  my  dear 
friend,"  cried  the  mayoress,  making  her  glass  ring 


168  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

by  the  way  she  sucked  the  Spanish  wine,  "what  a 
fortune  we  would  make! — " 

Zelie  had  reached  her  highest  point  of  incandes- 
cence; she  was  a  terrifying  object. 

"But  our  fortune  is  made!"  rejoined  Minard. 

"Do  you  agree  with  me,  sister,"  said  Brigitte  to 
Madame  Thuillier,  "that  we'd  better  have  our  coffee 
in  the  salon? — " 

Madame  Thuillier,  obeying  the  implied  command, 
or  pretending  to  act  as  hostess,  rose  to  her  feet. 

"Ah!  you're  a  wonderful  magician,"  said  Flavie 
Colleville,  as  she  took  La  Peyrade's  arm  to  go  from 
the  dining-room  to  the  salon. 

"Yet  I  have  no  wish  to  try  my  magic  art  on  any- 
one but  you,"  he  replied;  "and  I  am  simply  taking 
my  revenge,  believe  me;  you  are  more  bewitching 
to-day  than  ever!" 

"Fancy  Thuillier  imagining  himself  a  politician !" 
said  she,  seeking  to  avoid  the  combat. 

"But,  my  dear,  one-half  of  the  absurdities  that 
happen  in  society  are  the  result  of  such  conspira- 
cies as  this;  the  man  isn't  so  much  to  be  blamed  in 
this  sort  of  thing  as  people  think.  In  how  many 
families  do  you  not  see  the  husband  and  children 
and  friends  of  the  family  persuading  a  foolish 
mother  that  she  is  bright  and  intellectual,  a  mother 
of  fifty  that  she  is  young  and  lovely?  Such  things 
are  inexpressibly  comical  to  those  who  are  not  inter- 
ested. One  man  owes  his  sickening,  fatuous  con- 
ceit to  the  idolatry  of  a  mistress,  and  his  persistence 
in  making  bad  rhymes  to  people  who  are  paid  to 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  169 

make  him  think  he  is  a  great  man.  Every  family 
has  its  great  man,  and  the  result  is  general  darkness, 
as  in  the  Chamber,  with  all  the  greatest  lights  of 
France. — Meanwhile,  the  people  who  know  some- 
thing are  laughing  in  their  sleeves,  that's  all.  You 
have  all  the  wit  and  beauty  of  this  little  bourgeois 
circle;  that's  why  1  dedicated  my  heart  to  you;  but 
my  second  thought  was  to  take  you  away  from  it 
all,  for  I  love  you  sincerely;  and  more  as  a  friend 
than  a  lover,  although  a  good  deal  of  love  has  found 
its  way  in,"  he  added,  pressing  her  to  his  heart 
under  cover  of  the  window-recess  to  which  he  had 
led  her. 

"Madame  Phellion  will  officiate  at  the  piano," 
said  Colleville;  "everything  must  dance  to-day: 
the  bottles,  Brigitte's  twenty-sou  pieces,  and  our 
little  girls!  I'll  go  and  get  my  clarionet." 

He  handed  his  empty  coffee  cup  to  his  wife,  smil- 
ing to  see  her  on  such  harmonious  terms  with  Theo- 
dose. 

"Pray,  what  have  you  done  to  my  husband?" 
inquired  Flavie  of  her  charmer. 

"Must  we  tell  each  other  all  our  secrets?" 

"Ah!  you  don't  love  me,  then?"  she  retorted, 
glancing  at  him  with  the  sly  coquetry  cf  a  woman 
whose  mind  is  almost  made  up. 

"Oh!  as  you  tell  me  all  yours,"  he  rejoined, 
with  a  renewed  outburst  of  the  characteristic  Pro- 
vencal gaiety,  which  is  so  charming  and  apparently 
so  spontaneous,  "1  would  not  have  a  single  thought 
concealed  from  you  in  my  heart — " 


IJO  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

He  led  her  back  to  the  same  recess,  and  said  with 
a  smile: 

"Colleville,  poor  man,  has  recognized  in  me  the 
true  artist  oppressed  by  all  these  bourgeois,  holding 
his  peace  before  them  because  he  sees  that  he  is 
misunderstood,  misjudged,  persecuted;  but  he  has 
felt  the  heat  of  the  sacred  flame  that  consumes  me. 
Yes,"  he  continued,  with  an  air  of  deep  conviction, 
"I  am  an  artist  in  speech  after  the  style  of  Berryer ; 
I  could  make  jurors  weep  by  weeping  myself,  for  I 
am  as  nervous  as  a  woman.  And  then,  that  man, 
who  has  a  holy  horror  of  this  whole  bourgeois  con- 
nection, joked  with  me  about  it;  we  began  with 
laughter,  and  when  we  came  to  be  serious  he  found 
that  I  am  as  strong  as  he.  I  told  him  of  the  plan  we 
had  devised  to  make  something  of  Thuillier,  and  I 
showed  him  how  much  benefit  it  might  be  to  him  to 
have  a  political  automaton  to  do  his  bidding:  'If 
it  were  only  to  become  Monsieur  de  Colleville,'  I 
said,  'and  to  place  your  wife  where  1  would  like  to 
see  her;  suppose  you  could  get  a  good  berth  as 
receiver-general,  where  you  would  have  to  be  a 
deputy?  for,  in  order  to  take  the  position  you 
deserve,  it  will  be  enough  for  you  to  go  and  live  a 
year  or  two  in  some  little  town  in  the  Upper  or 
Lower  Alps,  where  everybody  will  be  attached  to 
you,  and  your  wife  will  fascinate  everybody.  And 
all  this,'  1  added,  'you  cannot  miss,  especially  if  you 
give  your  dear  Celeste  to  a  man  able  to  exert  influ- 
ence in  the  Chamber. '  Common-sense,  translated 
into  pleasantry,  has  the  virtue  of  making  a  much 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  171 

deeper  impression  than  it  could  do  unaided  upon 
certain  temperaments:  so  Colleville  and  I  are  the 
best  friends  in  the  world.  Didn't  he  say  to  me  at 
the  table:  'Villain,  you  took  the  words  out  of  my 
mouth !'  Before  the  evening  is  over  we  shall  be  call- 
ing each  other  thee  and  thou. — Then  a  nice  little 
party, — one  of  the  kind  at  which  artists  accustomed 
to  home  diet  always  compromise  themselves,  and  to 
which  I'll  find  a  way  to  induce  him  to  go, — will 
make  us  as  warm  friends  as  he  and  Thuillier;  more 
so,  perhaps,  for  I  have  told  him  that  Thuillier  was 
bursting  with  jealousy  of  his  rosette. — There,  my 
dear  love,  you  see  what  a  heartfelt  sentiment  gives  a 
man  the  courage  to  do!  Wasn't  it  necessary  that 
Colleville  should  adopt  me,  so  that  I  might  call  upon 
you  with  his  consent?— But  then  you  could  make 
me  lick  a  leper's  sores,  or  swallow  live  frogs,  or 
seduce  Brigitte;  yes,  I  would  run  that  great  pole 
through  my  heart,  if  it  were  necessary  to  use  it  as 
a  crutch  to  drag  myself  to  your  feet!" 

"This  morning,"  said  she,  "you  frightened  me — " 

"And  this  evening  you  are  reassured? — Have  no 
fear,"  he  said;  "no  harm  will  ever  come  to  you  from 
me." 

"Ah!  you  are  a  most  extraordinary  man,  I  con- 
fess—" 

"Why,  no;  my  most  trivial,  as  well  as  my 
greatest  efforts  are  but  the  reflection  of  the  fire  you 
have  kindled,  and  I  desire  to  be  your  son-in-law 
so  that  we  need  never  part— My  wife,  great 
heavens!  can  never  be  anything  more  than  a 


172  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

machine  to  produce  children;  but  the  sublime  being 
in  my  eyes,  my  divinity,  will  be  yourself,"  he 
whispered. 

"You  are  Satan  himself!"  she  exclaimed,  with  a 
shudder. 

"No,  I  am  something  of  a  poet,  like  all  the  people 
of  my  province.  Come!  be  my  Josephine!  1  will 
come  to  you  to-morrow  at  two ;  I  have  a  most  eager 
desire  to  see  where  you  sleep,  the  furniture  you  use, 
the  color  of  the  hangings,  the  arrangement  of  the 
things  amid  which  your  life  is  passed — to  admire  the 
pearl  in  its  shell!" 

With  that  he  shrewdly  walked  away,  preferring 
not  to  listen  to  her  reply. 

Flavie,  in  all  whose  experience  love  had  never 
spoken  the  impassioned  language  of  romance, 
remained  where  he  left  her,  bewildered  but  happy, 
with  palpitating  heart,  saying  to  herself  that  it  was 
very  difficult  not  to  yield  to  such  an  influence. 

For  the  first  time  Theodose  had  arrayed  himself  in 
new  breeches,  gray  silk  stockings  and  pumps,  a  black 
silk  waistcoat  and  black  satin  cravat,  in  whose  folds 
glistened  a  pretty,  tasteful  pin.  He  wore  a  new 
coat  of  the  latest  cut,  and  yellow  gloves  that  stood 
out  against  his  white  wristbands;  he  was  the  only 
man  with  refined  manners  and  dignified  bearing 
among  the  guests  who  slowly  filled  the  salon. 

Madame  Pron,  nee  Barniol,  arrived  with  two  of 
her  boarding-school  pupils,  each  about  seventeen 
years  old,  who  had  been  entrusted  to  her  motherly 
care  by  families  living  at  Bourbon  and  Martinique. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  173 

Monsieur  Pron,  professor  of  rhetoric  in  a  college 
managed  by  priests,  was  a  man  of  the  Phellion 
type;  but  instead  of  being  always  in  evidence, 
establishing  his  claim  to  consideration  by  pompous 
phrases  and  argumentation,  and  constantly  posing 
as  an  exemplar,  he  was  dull  and  sententious.  Mon- 
sieur and  Madame  Pron,  the  bright  particular  stars 
of  the  Phellion  salon,  received  on  Mondays;  they 
were  very  closely  allied  to  the  Phellions  through  the 
Barniols.  Although  a  dignified  professor,  little  Pron 
was  addicted  to  dancing.  The  great  celebrity  of 
the  Lagrave  institution,  to  which  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Phellion  had  been  attached  for  twenty 
years,  had  attained  even  greater  proportions  under 
the  management  of  Mademoiselle  Barniol,  the  most 
proficient  and  oldest  in  service  of  the  sub-mistresses. 
Monsieur  Pron  was  a  very  influential  personage  in 
that  portion  of  the  quarter  bounded  by  the  Boule- 
vard du  Mont-Parnasse,  the  Luxembourg,  and  Rue 
de  Sevres.  So  it  was  that  Phellion,  as  soon  as  he 
saw  his  friend,  took  him  by  the  arm  without  for- 
mality, and  led  him  aside  to  take  him  into  the  secret 
of  the  Thuillier  conspiracy,  and  after  talking 
together  ten  minutes  they  both  went  in  search  of 
Thuillier;  thereupon  the  window-recess  opposite 
that  where  Flavie  still  stood  absorbed  in  her  reflec- 
tions was  treated  without  doubt  to  a  trio  worthy, 
in  its  way,  to  be  ranked  beside  that  of  the  three 
Swiss  in  Wilhelm  Tell. 

"Do  you  see  the  upright  and  virtuous  Phellion 
intriguing?"  Theodose  said  to  Flavie.     "Give  the 


174  THE    PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

upright  man  an  excuse,  and  he'll  wallow  about  very 
comfortably  in  the  filthiest  kind  of  corruption;  at 
all  events  he's  hooked  little  Pron,  and  Pron's  cover- 
ing his  footsteps,  solely  in  the  interest  of  Felix 
Phellion,  who  has  your  little  Celeste  in  hand  at  this 
moment. — Pray  go  and  separate  them;  they've  been 
together  ten  minutes  and  young  Minard  is  prowling 
about  them  like  an  angry  bull-dog." 

Felix,  still  under  the  spell  of  the  keen  emotion 
caused  by  Celeste's  kind  act  wherein  her  heart 
spoke  so  plainly,  when  everybody  else  except  Ma- 
dame Thuillier  had  quite  forgotten  it,  had  recourse  to 
one  of  those  ingenious  subterfuges,  which  are  the 
honest  knavery  of  true  love  ;  but  he  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  the  business,  for  mathematics  furnished  all 
his  distraction.  He  went  up  to  Madame  Thuillier, 
imagining  shrewdly  that  Madame  Thuillier  would 
attract  Celeste.  This  deep  scheme,  as  it  would 
have  been  had  it  been  due  to  aught  but  a  profound 
passion,  was  the  more  successful,  in  that  Minard,  the 
advocate,  who  saw  nothing  in  Celeste  but  a  good- 
sized  marriage-portion,  had  no  such  happy  inspira- 
tion, and  was  drinking  his  coffee  and  talking  politics 
with  Laudigeois,  Monsieur  Barniol  and  Dutocq,  by 
command  of  his  father,  who  was  thinking  of  the  new 
legislature  to  be  chosen  in  1842. 

"  Who  would  not  be  fond  of  Celeste?  "  said  Felix 
to  Madame  Thuillier. 

"  Poor  dear  child,  she  is  the  only  person  on  earth 
who  cares  for  me,"  replied  the  outcast,  keeping  back 
her  tears. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  175 

"Eh?  Madame,  there  are  two  of  us  who  love 
you,"  rejoined  this  innocent  Mathieu  Laensberg, 
with  a  smile. 

"What  are  you  saying?"  asked  Celeste  of  her 
godmother,  as  she  approached  them. 

"My  child,"  said  the  pious  creature,  drawing  her 
goddaughter  to  her  side  and  kissing  her  on  the  brow, 
"he  says  that  you  and  he  make  two  who  love  me." 

"Don't  be  offended  at  my  presumption,  Mademoi- 
selle," said  the  future  candidate  for  the  Academy  of 
Sciences,  in  a  low  voice,  "but  let  me  do  what  1  can 
to  show  my  sincerity !  That's  the  way  I  was  made, 
you  see ;  injustice  shocks  me  deeply.  Ah !  how  great 
was  the  wisdom  of  the  Savior  of  mankind  in  prom- 
ising future  blessedness  to  the  kind  of  heart,  to  the 
lambs  that  are  sacrificed ! — A  man  who  had  simply 
loved  you  before,  Celeste,  would  adore  you  after 
your  sublime  outburst  at  the  table!  But  innocence 
alone  can  console  the  martyr !  You  are  a  tender- 
hearted girl,  and  you  will  be  one  of  the  women  who 
are  at  once  the  glory  and  the  happiness  of  a  family. 
A  lucky  man  will  he  be  who  wins  your  heart!" 

"Dear  godmother,  through  whose  eyes  does  Mon- 
sieur Felix  see  me,  pray?" 

"He  appreciates  you,  my  little  angel,  and  I  will 
pray  God  for  you — " 

"If  you  only  knew  how  happy  I  am  that  my  father 
is  able  to  be  of  service  to  Monsieur  Thuillier, — and 
how  glad  1  would  be  to  be  useful  to  your  brother! — " 

"In  short,"  said  Celeste,  "you  love  the  whole 
family?" 


176  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Well,  yes,"  replied  Felix. 

True  love  always  wraps  itself  in  the  mysteries 
of  modesty,  even  in  its  manner  of  expression,  for 
it  proves  itself  by  itself;  it  feels  not  the  need,  as 
false  love  does,  of  kindling  a  conflagration,  and  a 
disinterested  observer,  who  could  have  insinuated 
himself  into  the  Thuillier  salon,  might  have  found 
material  for  a  book  in  a  comparison  of  the  two 
scenes, — the  extensive  and  complicated  preparation 
of  Theodose,  and  Felix's  simplicity;  one  repre- 
sented society,  the  other  nature;  the  true  and  the 
false  were  brought  face  to  face. 

In  truth,  as  she  watched  her  daughter,  blissfully 
pouring  forth  her  heart  through  every  pore  of  her 
face,  and  fair  as  a  young  girl  plucking  the  first 
flowers  of  an  indirect  declaration,  Flavie  felt  a 
thrill  of  jealousy  at  her  heart;  she  went  to 
Celeste  and  whispered  in  her  ear : 

"You  aren't  behaving  very  well,  my  child ;  every- 
body is  looking  at  you,  and  you  are  compromising 
yourself  by  talking  so  long  with  Monsieur  Felix, 
without  first  finding  out  whether  it's  agreeable  to 
us." 

"But,  mamma,  my  godmother  is  here." 

"Oh!  I  beg  your  pardon!  my  dear  friend,"  said 
Madame  Colleville,  "I  didn't  see  you — " 

"You  do  as  everybody  else  does,"  retorted  the  St 
John  Chrysostom. 

This  rebuke  annoyed  Madame  Colleville,  who  re- 
ceived it  like  a  barbed  arrow ;  she  glanced  haughtily 
at  Felix,  and  said  to  Celeste:  "Come  and  sit  here, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  177 

my  child,"  as  she  seated  herself  beside  Madame 
Thuillier,  and  pointed  to  a  chair  beside  her  own. 

"I  will  kill  myself  with  work,"  said  Felix  there- 
upon to  Madame  Thuillier,  "or  I'll  become  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Academy  ot  Sciences,  and  I  will  make 
some  great  discovery  and  win  her  hand  by  making 
my  name  glorious." 

"Ah!"  said  the  poor  woman  to  herself,  "I  ought 
to  have  married  some  kind,  quiet  student  like  him ! 
— I  should  have  developed  slowly  under  cover  of  a 
retired  life. — Thou  didst  will  otherwise,  O  my  God! 
but  I  pray  Thee  to  join  the  hands  of  these  two 
children  and  shelter  them !  they  are  made  for  each 
other." 

She  sat  pensively  by,  listening  to  the  infernal 
hubbub  her  sister  was  making,  for  the  latter  was  a 
veritable  draugnt-horse,  and  was  now  at  work 
assisting  her  two  servants  to  clear  the  table  and 
remove  everything  from  the  dining-room,  to  give 
the  dancers  a  clear  field;  and  she  was  shouting  like 
the  captain  of  a  frigate  on  his  quarter-deck,  prepar- 
ing to  take  his  ship  into  action:  "Have  you  got  any 
more  currant  syrup?  Go  and  buy  some  orgeat!" — 
or:  "There  aren't  many  glasses  and  only  a  little 
weak  wine  and  water ;  go  and  get  the  six  bottles  of 
*uin  ordinaire  1  have  just  brought  up.  Look  out  that 
Coffmet,  the  porter,  doesn't  take  any! — Caroline, 
my  girl,  stay  by  the  sideboard. — You  shall  have  a 
slice  of  ham  in  case  they're  still  dancing  at  one 
o'clock.  No  chattering!  have  an  eye  on  every- 
thing. Pass  me  the  broom ;  put  oil  in  the  lamps 


178  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

and  look  out  for  accidents.  Arrange  what's  left  of 
the  dessert  so  as  to  make  the  sideboard  look  nice. — 
See  if  my  sister  will  come  and  help  us!  I  don't 
know  what  the  slow-coach  is  thinking  about  My 
God !  how  slow  she  is !  bah !  take  away  the  chairs, 
and  they'll  have  more  room." 

The  salon  was  filled  with  Barniols,  Collevilles, 
Laudigeois,  Phellions,  and  all  those  who  were  drawn 
thither  by  the  report  that  there  was  to  be  a  dance 
at  the  Thuilliers',  which  report  was  circulated  in  the 
Luxembourg  gardens  between  two  and  four  o'clock, 
when  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  quarter  was  taking  its 
promenade. 

"Are  you  ready,  Brigitte?"  asked  Colleville, 
rushing  into  the  dining-room ;  "it's  nine  o'clock,  and 
they're  packed  as  close  as  herrings  in  your  salon. 
Cardot,  his  wife  and  son  and  daughter  and  son-in- 
law  that  is  to  be,  have  just  come,  with  the  young 
deputy  king's  attorney,  Vinet,  and  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine  is  marching  in  at  this  moment  Shall 
we  move  the  piano  in  here  from  the  salon,  eh?" 

He  gave  the  signal  on  his  clarionet,  his  spirited 
flourish  thereon  being  welcomed  with  a  shout  in  the 
salon. 

It  is  a  thankless  task  to  describe  a  ball  of  this 
sort  The  dresses,  the  faces,  the  conversation, 
everything  was  in  harmony  with  a  single  detail 
which  should  be  sufficient  for  the  least  vivid  imagi- 
nation ;  for  in  every  such  function  the  nature  and 
color  of  any  single  fact  serve  to  stamp  the  whole 
affair.  Ordinary  glasses  filled  with  pure  wine, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  179 

wine  and  water  and  eau  sucree,  were  passed 
about  on  shabby,  discolored  plates.  The  trays  on 
which  were  the  glasses  of  orgeat  and  syrup  appeared 
only  at  long  intervals.  There  were  five  card-tables 
and  twenty-five  players!  eighteen  couples  danc- 
ing! At  one  in  the  morning,  Madame  Thuillier, 
Mademoiselle  Brigitte,  Madame  Phellion,  to  say 
nothing  of  Phellion  pere,  were  enticed  into  the  wild 
evolutions  of  a  contra-dance  vulgarly  called  La 
Boulangtre,  in  which  Dutocq  figured  with  his  head 
veiled  after  the  manner  of  the  Kabyles!  The  ser- 
vants, who  were  waiting  for  their  masters  with 
those  of  the  household,  formed  an  audience,  and  as 
the  interminable  dance  lasted  a  full  hour,  they 
insisted  upon  carrying  Brigitte  in  triumph  when  she 
announced  supper;  but  she  divined  the  necessity  of 
concealing  a  dozen  bottles  of  old  Burgundy.  They 
all  enjoyed  themselves  so  thoroughly,  staid  matrons 
as  well  as  young  girls,  that  Thuillier  made  bold  to 
say: 

"Well,  we  hardly  expected  this  morning  that  we 
should  have  such  a  celebration  as  this  to-day! — " 

"Nothing  is  ever  more  pleasant  than  these  par- 
ties gotten  up  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,"  said 
Cardot,  the  notary.  "Don't  talk  to  me  about  the 
stiff,  formal  affairs  that  everyone  goes  to  well- 
groomed!" 

This  idea  is  a  sort  of  axiom  in  bourgeois  circles. 

"Nonsense!"  said  Madame  Minard;  "for  my  own 
part,  I'm  very  fond  of  papa,  and  I'm  very  fond  of 
mamma,  but — " 


180  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"We  don't  say  that  for  you,  Madame,  beneath 
whose  roof  pleasure  has  chosen  to  make  her  home," 
said  Dutocq. 

When  La  Boulanglre  was  at  an  end,  Theodose 
dragged  Dutocq  away  from  the  sideboard,  where  he 
was  taking  a  slice  of  tongue. 

"Let's  go  home,"  said  he,  "for  we  must  be  at 
Cerizet's  early  in  the  morning  to  find  out  all  there 
is  to  know  about  the  affair  we  all  have  in  mind;  it's 
not  so  easy  as  Cerizet  thinks." 

"Why  not?"  queried  Dutocq,  eating  his  piece  of 
tongue  in  the  salon. 

"Why,  don't  you  know  the  laws? — " 

"I  know  enough  of  them  to  be  quite  well  aware  of 
the  risk  of  the  thing.  If  the  notary  wants  the 
house,  and  we  whistle  it  away  from  him,  there's  a 
way  for  him  to  take  it  from  us  again,  and  he  may 
put  himself  in  the  position  of  a  registered  creditor. 
According  to  the  law  now  in  force  concerning  mort- 
gages, when  a  house  is  sold  at  the  request  of  a  cred- 
itor, if  the  price  obtained  at  the  sale  isn't  enough  to 
pay  all  the  debts,  the  creditors  have  a  right  to  bid 
it  in;  and  the  notary,  having  been  caught  once,  will 
think  better  of  it." 

"Very  good,"  said  La  Peyrade;  "that  seems  to 
me  to  deserve  some  attention." 

"All  right!"  said  the  clerk;  "we'll  go  and  see 
Cerizet." 

These  words:  "We'll  go  and  see  Cerizet,"  were 
overheard  by  the  advocate  Minard,  who  was  close  on 
the  heels  of  the  two  confederates ;  but  they  meant 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  l8l 

nothing  to  him.  The  two  men  were  so  far  removed 
from  his  path  and  his  plans  that  he  listened  to  them 
without  hearing. 

"This  has  been  one  of  the  happiest  days  in  our 
whole  life,"  said  Brigitte,  when  she  was  at  last 
alone  with  her  brother  at  half-past  two  in  the  morn- 
ing, in  the  deserted  salon;  "what  a  glorious  thing 
it  is  to  be  thus  selected  by  one's  fellow-citizens!" 

"Don't  make  any  mistake,  Brigitte;  we  owe  all 
this  to  one  man,  my  child — " 

"Who  is  that?" 

"Our  friend  La  Peyrade. " 


Not  until  the  second  day  after,  Tuesday,  did 
Dutocq  and  Theodose  call  upon  Cerizet,  the  clerk 
having  bethought  himself  that  that  worthy  was 
accustomed  to  take  a  vacation  on  Sunday  and  Mon- 
day, availing  himself  of  the  scarcity  of  customers  at 
the  justice's  court  on  those  two  days,  which  were 
devoted  by  the  common  people  to  debauchery.  The 
house  toward  which  they  bent  their  steps  is  one  of 
the  salient  features  of  the  physiognomy  of  Faubourg 
Saint- Jacques,  and  it  is  as  important  to  be  studied 
here  as  Thuillier's  or  Phellion's.  No  one  knows — 
true,  no  commission  has  yet  been  appointed  to 
investigate  this  phenomenon — no  one  knows  how  or 
why  the  various  quarters  are  becoming  degraded  and 
debased,  morally  as  well  as  physically;  how  the 
former  abiding-places  of  the  court  and  the  Church, 
the  Luxembourg  and  the  Latin  Quarter,  have 
become  what  they  are  to-day,  notwithstanding  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  palaces  in  the  world,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  soaring  dome  of  Sainte-Genevieve, 
and  that  of  Mansard  at  Val-de-Grace,and  the  beauties 
of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes.  One  wonders  why  all 
the  refinements  of  life  are  vanishing;  how  it  is 
that  the  houses  of  the  Vauquers,  the  Phel lions  and 
the  Thuilliers,  and  the  boarding-schools,  are  mul- 
tiplying to  such  an  extent  on  the  sites  of  so  many 
noble  edifices  devoted  to  good  works,  and  why 
(183) 


1 84  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

squalor  and  vulgar  industry  and  poverty  have 
pitched  their  tents  upon  a  mountain,  instead  of  pa- 
rading themselves  far  away  from  the  noble  old  city  ? 
No  sooner  was  the  angel  dead  who  formerly  hovered 
over  the  quarter,  with  protecting  wings  outspread, 
than  petty  usury  hastened  to  the  spot.  A  Cerizet 
succeeded  Councillor  Popinot;  and  it  is  a  curious 
fact,  and  one  well  worth  studying,  that  the  effect 
produced,  socially  speaking,  was  very  slight  Pop- 
inot loaned  without  interest  and  expected  to  lose; 
Cerizet  lost  nothing,  and  compelled  the  poor  devils 
to  work  hard  and  be  more  prudent  The  poor  adored 
Popinot,  but  they  had  no  feeling  of  hatred  for  Cer- 
izet Here  we  see  at  work  the  lowest  wheels  of 
the  Parisian  financial  machine.  At  the  top  are  the 
Maison  Nucingen,  the  Kellers,  the  Du  Tillets,  the 
Mongenods;  a  little  lower,  the  Palmas,  the  Gigon- 
nets,  the  Gobsecks;  lower  still,  the  Samanons,  the 
Chaboisseaus,  the  Barbets;  and  finally,  below  the 
Mont-de-Piete,  that  king  of  usurers,  who  stretches 
his  nets  at  street  corners  in  order  to  take  every  poor 
man  by  the  throat,  and  let  not  one  escape, — below 
the  Mont-de-Piete  come  the  Cerizets! 

The  frogged  overcoat  should  have  given  you  a 
glimpse  already  of  the  hovel  that  sheltered  this 
stock-company  swindler,  and  fugitive  from  the  sixth 
chamber. 

It  was  a  house  eaten  up  with  saltpetre;  the  walls 
were  reeking  with  dampness  and  were  covered, 
enameled  as  it  were,  with  great  blotches  of  mildew. 
It  was  located  at  the  corner  of  Rue  des  Postes 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  185 

and  Rue  des  Poules,  and  the  ground-floor  was  occu- 
pied in  part  by  a  wine-shop  of  the  lowest  class, 
painted  a  brillaint  red  on  the  outside,  and  adorned 
with  red  calico  curtains;  the  counter  was  covered 
with  lead  and  protected  with  formidable  iron  bars. 

Above  the  door  leading  into  a  filthy  hall  swung 
a  dirty  lantern,  whereon  were  the  words:  "Lodging 
for  the  night"  The  walls  were  dotted  with  iron 
supports  which  bore  witness  to  the  instability  of 
their  construction.  The  wine  merchant  was  the 
owner  of  the  property  and  lived  on  the  entresol. 
Widow  Poiret — nee  Michonneau — kept  furnished 
rooms  to  let  on  the  first,  second  and  third  floors, 
consisting  mostly  of  small  bedrooms  let  to  workmen 
and  the  poorer  class  of  students. 

Cerizet  occupied  one  room  on  the  ground-floor  and 
one  on  the  entresol,  reached  by  an  inner  staircase ; 
the  entresol  was  lighted  from  a  horrible  paved  court- 
yard from  which  a  most  disgusting  stench  arose. 
Cerizet  paid  Widow  Poiret  forty  francs  a  month  for 
breakfast  and  dinner ;  he  thus  acquired  the  land- 
lady's good  graces  by  becoming  her  boarder,  and 
the  wine  merchant's  by  helping  him  to  an  enormous 
traffic  in  wines  and  liquors,  most  of  which  was 
carried  on  before  sunrise.  Monsieur  Cadenet's 
counting-room  was  open  earlier  than  Cerizet's,  who 
began  operations  on  Tuesday  about  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning  in  summer,  and  about  five  in  winter.  It 
was  regulated  by  the  hour  for  opening  the  great  mar- 
ket whither  many  of  his  customers  of  both  sexes  were 
on  their  way.  Monsieur  Cadenet,  in  consideration 


186  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

of  this  custom,  which  he  owed  entirely  to  Cer- 
izet,  charged  him  only  eighty  francs  a  year  for  the 
two  rooms,  and  he  had  signed  a  lease  for  twelve 
years  which  Cerizet  alone  had  the  right  to  put  an 
end  to,  without  penalty,  at  three  months'  notice. 
Every  day  Cadenet  in  person  brought  his  invalua- 
ble tenant  an  excellent  bottle  of  wine  for  his  dinner, 
and  when  Cerizet's  pockets  were  empty  he  simply 
had  to  say  to  his  friend:  "Cadenet,  lend  me  a  hun- 
dred crowns,  will  you?"  But  he  invariably  paid 
them  back. 

Cadenet  had,  so  he  said,  proof  positive  that  the 
Widow  Poiret  had  entrusted  two  thousand  francs  to 
Cerizet,  which  fact  would  explain  his  upward  pro- 
gress from  the  day  he  took  up  his  abode  in  the 
quarter  with  his  last  thousand-franc  note  and 
Dutocq's  patronage.  Cadenet,  with  a  thirst  for 
gain  which  was  increased  by  success,  had  suggested 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year  loaning  twenty  thous- 
and francs  to  his  friend  Cerizet,  but  Cerizet 
declined  the  loan,  on  the  pretext  that  he  was  then 
taking  risks  of  a  nature  to  make  trouble  between 
him  and  any  partner  he  might  have. 

"I  couldn't  pay  you  more  than  six  per  cent  any- 
way," said  he,  "and  you  can  make  more  than  that 
in  your  business. — We'll  go  in  together  later  on  a 
matter  of  some  consequence;  but  a  good  opportunity 
is  worth  at  least  fifty  thousand  francs ;  when  you 
have  that  sum  by  you,  why  we  can  talk." 

Cerizet  had  gone  to  Theodose  about  the  matter  of 
the  house  because  he  found  that  Madame  Poiret, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  187 

Cadenet  and  himself  could  not  raise  a  hundred  thous- 
and francs  between  them. 

The  money-lender  was  perfectly  safe  in  this  den, 
where  he  would  have  found  plenty  to  lend  him  a 
hand  in  case  of  need.  On  some  mornings  there 
were  from  sixty  to  eighty  people,  men  and  women, 
on  the  wine  merchant's  premises,  either  sitting  on 
the  stairs  in  the  hall,  or  in  the  office,  where  the 
suspicious  Cerizet  would  not  admit  more  than  six 
persons  at  one  time.  The  first  comers  were  served 
first,  and  as  everyone  was  admitted  by  number,  the 
wine  merchant  or  his  clerk  numbered  the  men  on 
their  hats  and  the  women  on  their  backs. 

Those  at  the  head  of  the  line  sold  their  numbers 
to  those  at  the  foot,  as  cab-drivers  do  on  the  cab 
stands.  On  certain  days,  when  business  was  press- 
ing at  the  market,  a  place  at  the  head  would  bring 
a  glass  of  eau-de-vie  and  a  sou.  The  exit  of  one 
number  was  the  signal  for  the  following  number  to 
enter  Cerizet's  office,  and  if  any  dispute  arose 
Cadenet  would  at  once  interpose : 

"If  you  get  the  guard  and  the  police  here,  will  you 
be  any  better  off?  He  will  shut  up  shop." 

He  was  Cerizet's  name.  If  a  wretched,  desperate 
woman,  without  bread  and  with  children  dying  of 
hunger  at  home,  came  in  to  borrow  ten  or  twenty 
sous,  she  would  ask  the  wine-shop  keeper  or  his 
head  clerk: 

"Is  /**  in?" 

Cadenet,  a  short,  thickset  man,  dressed  in  blue, 
with  black  stuff  sleeves  pulled  over  his  coat  sleeves, 


1 88  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

a  bartender's  apron,  and  a  white  cap,  seemed  an 
angel  in  disguise  to  these  poor  mothers  when  he 
would  say: 

"He  told  me  you  were  an  honest  woman  and  that 
I  might  give  you  forty  sous.  You  know  what  you'll 
have  to  do." — And,  incredible  fact,  he  was  blessed, 
as  Popinot  was  blessed  before  him. 

But  they  cursed  Cerizet  on  Sunday  morning  when 
they  settled  up  with  him;  they  cursed  him  even 
more  on  Saturday  when  they  were  working  away, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  return  the  sum  loaned,  with 
interest!  But  he  was  Providence,  he  was  God  him- 
self, from  Tuesday  to  Friday  of  every  week. 

The  room  in  which  he  carried  on  his  business, 
formerly  the  kitchen  of  the  first-floor  suite,  was 
unfurnished;  the  whitewashed  beams  of  the  floor 
above  were  blackened  with  smoke.  The  walls, 
along  which  settees  were  placed,  and  the  sandstone 
tiles  of  which  the  floor  was  made,  alternately  stored 
up  and  exuded  moisture.  The  fireplace  was  replaced 
by  an  iron  stove  in  which  Cerizet  burned  pit  coal 
in  cold  weather ;  but  the  bell-shaped  funnel  was  still 
in  place.  Beneath  the  funnel  was  a  platform  some 
six  feet  square  and  about  six  inches  from  the  floor, 
and  on  it  a  table  worth  twenty  sous  and  a  wooden 
arm-chair  with  a  round  cushion  covered  with  green 
leather.  Behind  his  seat  Cerizet  had  had  the  wall 
sheathed  with  what  had  once  been  the  floor-boards 
of  a  boat.  Then  he  was  flanked  by  a  little  white 
wood  screen  to  shelter  him  from  the  draught  from 
the  door  and  window ;  but  the  screen — it  had  two 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  189 

leaves — was  so  arranged  as  to  give  him  full  benefit  of 
the  heat  from  the  stove.  The  window  was  fur- 
nished with  heavy  inside  shutters,  lined  with  sheet- 
iron  and  kept  in  place  by  an  iron  bar.  The  door 
likewise  enjoined  respect  by  a  lining  of  the  same 
material. 

At  the  back  of  the  room,  in  a  corner,  was  a  spiral 
staircase,  once  a  part  of  some  demolished  store  and 
purchased  by  Cadenet  on  Rue  Chapon.  The  top 
of  the  staircase  was  fitted  into  the  floor  of  the  entre- 
sol, and  to  make  all  communication  with  the  first 
floor  impossible  Cerizet  had  demanded  that  the  door 
on  the  landing  of  the  entresol  should  be  walled  up. 
Thus  his  domicile  was  a  regular  fortress.  Above 
was  his  bedroom,  which  had  for  furniture  a  carpet 
for  which  he  paid  twenty  francs,  an  iron  bed,  a 
bureau,  two  chairs,  one  arm-chair,  and  an  iron 
chest,  after  the  style  of  a  secretary,  made  by  an 
excellent  mechanic,  and  purchased  by  him  at  second- 
hand. He  shaved  before  the  glass  over  the  mantel- 
piece; he  possessed  two  pairs  of  cotton  sheets,  six 
fine  calico  shirts  and  other  things  in  keeping. 
Once  or  twice  Cadenet  had  seen  Cerizet  dressed 
like  any  dandy;  in  the  lower  drawer  of  his  bureau 
lay  hid  a  complete  disguise  in  which  he  could  go  to 
the  Opera,  aye,  or  into  society,  without  fear  of 
being  recognized,  for,  had  it  not  been  for  his  voice, 
Cadenet  would  have  said  to  him,  "What  can  I  do 
for  you?" 

The  one  thing  about  this  man  that  pleased  his 
customers  more  than  anything  else,  was  his  jovial 


190  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

humor,  his  ready  repartees;  he  spoke  their  lan- 
guage. Cadenet,  his  two  clerks  and  Cerizet,  living 
in  the  very  midst  of  the  most  squalid  poverty,  were 
always  as  calm  and  unconcerned  as  an  undertaker's 
mute  with  the  heirs-at-law,  or  an  old  sergeant  of  the 
Guard  among  the  dead  on  the  battlefield;  they  no 
more  groaned  as  they  listened  to  the  shrieks  of  hun- 
ger and  despair,  than  surgeons  groan  as  they  listen 
to  their  patients  in  the  hospital;  and  they  would 
say,  just  as  the  surgeons  and  their  assistants  do, 
some  such  meaningless  words  as:  "  Have  patience, 
have  a  litle  courage!  What's  the  use  of  getting 
desperate?  Suppose  you  kill  yourself,  what  then? 
— A  man  can  get  used  to  anything;  have  a  little 
common  sense,"  etc. 

Although  Cerizet  took  the  precaution  to  conceal 
the  money  necessary  for  his  morning's  operations 
in  the  double  back  of  the  chair  in  which  he  sat, — 
to  take  out  but  a  hundred  francs  at  once,  which  he 
put  in  his  breeches  pocket, — and  to  draw  on  his 
reserve  only  between  two  batches  of  clients,  keeping 
his  door  closed  and  not  reopening  it  until  the  fresh 
supply  was  safely  in  his  pocket, — he  had  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  different  varieties  of  despair  which 
flocked  from  all  sides  to  this  rendezvous  of  cash.  It 
is  beyond  question  that  there  are  many  ways  of 
being  honest  or  virtuous,  and  the  Monographic  de  la 
Vertu^  has  no  other  foundation  than  that  social 
axiom.  Man  is  false  to  his  conscience,  he  openly 

*  A  work  after  the  style  of  the  Ptysiologie  du  Manage,  at  which  the  author 
has  been  at  work  since  1833.  when  it  was  announced.    (Author's  note.) 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  191 

violates  every  canon  of  delicacy,  he  fails  in  his  duty 
in  nice  points  of  honor,  and  yet  he  may  not  fall  into 
general  disesteem ;  he  casts  honor  to  the  winds  alto- 
gether, and  yet,  even  if  he  lands  in  the  police  court, 
he  may  not  be  liable  to  be  brought  before  the  assizes ; 
and,  after  the  verdict  of  the  jury,  which  makes  him 
a  felon,  he  may  be  honored  at  the  galleys  by  carry- 
ing thither  with  him  that  species  of  honesty  which 
is  known  among  thieves,  and  which  consists  in  tell- 
ing no  tales,  in  dividing  plunder  fairly,  and  in  incur- 
ring the  same  risks.  This  last  mentioned  variety 
of  honesty,  which  may  be  the  result  of  calculation,  a 
necessity,  if  you  please,  and  the  practice  of  which 
affords  a  man  some  opportunities  of  gaining  renown 
and  of  profit,  too,  was  never  deviated  from  in  Ceri- 
zet's  transactions  with  his  clients.  Cerizet  never 
made  mistakes,  nor  did  his  indigent  debtors: 
neither  denied  the  other  anything,  on  the  one  side 
in  the  way  of  capital,  on  the  other,  interest  It  had 
happened  several  times  that  Cerizet,  who  was  him- 
self of  the  people,  had  corrected  from  one  week  to 
another  an  unintentional  error,  to  the  profit  of  some 
wretched  creature  who  had  not  discovered  it.  So  it 
was  that  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  dog,  if  you  will, 
but  an  honest  dog;  his  word,  in  that  city  of  sorrow, 
was  sacred.  A  woman  died,  who  had  just  borrowed 
thirty  francs. 

"There  go  my  profits!"  he  said  to  his  assembled 
clients,  "and  yet  you  call  me  names.  However,  I 
sha'n't  disturb  her  little  brats! — and  Cadenet  has 
taken  them  some  bread  and  sour  wine." 


IQ2  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Since  that  cleverly  devised  stroke  it  was  com- 
monly said  of  him  in  two  faubourgs: 

"He's  not  a  bad  sort!" 

This  business  of  loaning  at  extortionate  rates  for 
very  short  periods,  as  carried  on  by  Cerizet,  was 
not,  all  things  considered,  so  painful  a  wound  in 
the  side  of  society  as  the  Mont-de-Piete.  Cerizet 
loaned  ten  francs  on  Tuesday  on  condition  that 
twelve  francs  should  be  paid  him  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing. Thus  he  doubled  his  capital  in  five  weeks,  but 
there  was  much  work  to  be  done  for  it.  His  gener- 
osity consisted  in  sometimes  recovering  only  eleven 
francs  and  a  half;  they  still  owed  him  the  balance. 
When  he  loaned  fifty  francs  for  sixty  to  some  petty 
fruit  vender,  or  a  hundred  for  a  hundred  and  twenty 
to  a  dealer  in  peat,  he  took  some  chances. 

As  they  walked  through  Rue  des  Postes  to  the 
corner  of  Rue  des  Poules,  Theodose  and  Dutocq 
noticed  a  crowd  of  men  and  women,  and  as  the  light 
shed  by  the  lamps  outside  the  wine-shop  fell  upon 
them,  the  two  friends  were  almost  terrified  by  the 
aspect  of  that  confused  mass  of  faces  of  every  pos- 
sible description,  red,  grimy,  seamed,  wrinkled,  dis- 
torted, bearded,  beardless,  bloated  with  wine,  made 
gaunt  with  absinthe,  some  threatening,  others  re- 
signed, some  full  of  banter,  others  subdued  by 
suffering,  some  bright,  others  stupid — and  all  rising 
above  a  wilderness  of  rags  and  tatters  that  no  painter 
has  ever  surpassed,  even  in  the  wildest  flights  of 
his  fancy. 

"1  shall  be  recognized!"  said  Theodose,  drawing 


CERIZETS   OFFICE 

As  they  walked  through  Rue  des  Posies  to  the 
corner  of  Rue  des  Poules,  Theodose  and  Dutocq 
noticed  a  crowd  of  men  and  women,  and  as  the 
light  shed  by  the  lamps  outside  the  wine-shop  fell 
upon  them,  the  two  friends  were  almost  terrified  by 
the  aspect  of  that  confused  mass  of  faces  of  every 
possible  description,  *  *  *  and  all  rising  above  a 
wilderness  of  rags  and  tatters  that  no  painter  has 
ever  surpassed,  even  in  the  wildest  flights  of  his  fancy. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  193 

Dutocq  away;  "we  did  a  foolish  thing  to  come  here 
while  he's  right  in  the  midst  of  his  morning's  busi- 
ness.— " 

"Especially  as  we  didn't  remember  that  Claparon 
sleeps  in  this  den  of  his,  the  interior  of  which  we 
know  nothing  about.  Look  here;  there  are  some 
reasons  why  it  may  be  inconvenient  for  you,  but 
there  are  none  so  far  as  I  am  concerned ;  I  may  well 
have  something  to  say  to  my  copyist,  and  I'll  go 
and  ask  him  to  come  to  dinner,  for  there's  a  session 
of  the  court  to-day  and  we  shall  have  no  time  for 
lunch ;  we  will  make  an  appointment  to  meet  at  the 
Chaumilre  in  one  of  the  booths  in  the  garden — " 

"That's  a  wretched  place;  somebody  may  be 
listening  and  we  not  know  it, "  replied  the  advocate ; 
"I  prefer  the  Petit  Rocker  de  Cancale,  where  people 
have  rooms  to  themselves  and  talk  low." 

"Suppose  you  are  seen  with  Cerizet?" 

"All  right,  let's  go  to  the  Cheval  Rouge,  Quai  de 
la  Tournelle." 

"That's much  better;  at  seven  o'clock  we  sha'n't 
find  any  one  there." 

Dutocq  thereupon  advanced  alone  into  the  centre 
of  the  congress  of  beggars,  and  heard  his  name  re- 
peated here  and  there  in  the  crowd,  for  it  would 
have  been  strange  if  he  had  not  fallen  in  with  some 
police  court  frequenter  there,  just  as  Theodose  was 
likely  to  encounter  some  of  his  clients. 

In  these  neighborhoods  the  justice  of  the  peace  is 
the  court  of  last  resort,  and  all  disputes  are  settled 
before  him,  especially  since  the  enactment  of  the  law 
13 


194  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

giving  him  exclusive  and  final  jurisdiction  in  all 
cases  where  the  amount  at  issue  does  not  exceed  one 
hundred  and  forty  francs.  Therefore  they  made 
way  for  the  clerk,  who  was  no  less  dreaded  than  the 
magistrate  himself.  He  saw  women  sitting  on  the 
stairs,  like  flowers  arranged  on  steps, — a  ghastly 
spectacle,  for  among  them  there  were  young  women 
and  pale-faced,  sickly  women ;  the  variety  of  colors, 
the  mixture  of  neckerchiefs  and  caps  and  dresses  and 
aprons  made  the  comparison  more  apt  than  compari- 
sons are  wont  to  be,  perhaps.  Dutocq  was  almost 
suffocated  when  he  opened  the  door  of  the  room 
through  which  sixty  persons  had  already  passed, 
leaving  their  odors  behind  them. 

"Your  number?  what  number?"  was  the  cry. 

"Hold  your  tongues!"  cried  a  hoarse  voice  in  the 
street;  "it's  the  justice's  quill-driver." 

Profound  silence  at  once  reigned  throughout  the 
crowd. 

Dutocq  found  his  copyist  arrayed  in  a  waistcoat 
of  yellow  leather  like  the  gloves  worn  by  the  gen- 
darmerie, but  beneath  it  Cerizet  wore  a  vulgar 
knitted  woolen  waistcoat.  One  can  imagine  the 
effect  produced  by  that  ghastly  face  protruding  from 
such  a  sheath,  and  enveloped  by  a  soiled  handker- 
chief which  left  his  forehead  and  neck  bare,  and 
imparted  to  his  features  an  expression  no  less  dis- 
gusting than  formidable,  especially  by  the  light  of  a 
twelve  to  the  pound  candle. 

"Things  can't  go  on  in  this  way,  Papa  Lanti- 
meche,"  he  was  saying  to  an  old  man,  apparently 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  195 

seventy  years  of  age,  who  stood  before  him  with 
his  red  woolen  cap  in  his  hand,  showing  his  bald 
head,  and  through  the  holes  in  his  wretched  smock  a 
breast  covered  with  white  hair;  "tell  me  what  it  is 
you  propose  to  undertake !  A  hundred  francs  aren't 
to  be  let  loose  like  a  dog  in  a  church,  even  on  condi- 
tion of  paying  back  a  hundred  and  twenty. — " 

The  other  five  occupants  of  the  room,  two  of  whom 
were  women,  both  nurses,  one  knitting  and  the  other 
with  a  child  at  her  breast,  roared  with  laughter. 

When  he  saw  Dutocq,  Cerizet  rose  respectfully 
and  walked  quickly  to  meet  him,  adding  as  he  did 
so: 

"You  have  time  enough  to  reflect;  for,  d'ye  know, 
it  troubles  me  to  have  an  old  journeyman  locksmith 
like  you  wanting  a  hundred  francs." 

"But  it's  for  an  invention! — "  cried  the  old  man. 

"An  invention  and  a  hundred  francs! — You  don't 
know  the  laws;  you  need  two  thousand  francs," 
said  Dutocq;  "you  must  have  a  patent  and  ca- 
veats— " 

"True,"  said  Cerizet,  who  always  reckoned  on 
contingencies  of  that  sort;  "I'll  tell  you,  Papa  Lanti- 
meche,  come  to-morrow  morning  at  six  and  we'll 
talk  it  over :  people  don't  talk  about  their  inventions 
in  a  crowd." 

Thereupon  Cerizet  turned  to  listen  to  Dutocq, 
whose  first  words  were : 

"If  it's  a  good  thing,  let's  go  halves! — " 

"Why  do  you  get  up  so  early  to  come  and  say 
that?"  demanded  the  suspicious  Cerizet,  indignant 


196  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

at  the  let's  go  halves.  "You  could  have  seen  me  at 
the  office." 

He  looked  askance  at  Dutocq,  who,  although  he 
told  him  the  truth,  speaking  of  Claparon  and  of  the 
necessity  of  moving  promptly  in  Theodose's  affair, 
seemed  to  shuffle  and  squirm. 

"You  might  have  seen  me  this  morning  at  the 
office,"  Cerizet  repeated,  as  he  accompanied  Dutocq 
to  the  door. 

"There's  a  man,"  he  said  to  himself  as  he 
resumed  his  seat,  "who  acts  as  if  he  had  blown  out 
his  lantern  so  that  I  can't  see  what  I'm  about.  Oh, 
well,  we'll  just  step  out  of  our  copyist's  place. — Ah! 
there  you  are,  little  mother!"  he  cried;  "so  you're 
having  imaginary  children.  That's  very  amusing, 
although  it's  a  very  familiar  trick!" 

It  would  be  useless  to  describe  the  interview 
between  the  three  confederates,  because  the  ar- 
rangements they  agreed  upon  were  the  basis  of  The- 
odose's confidential  communication  to  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier;  but  it  is  essential  to  remark  that  the 
ingenuity  displayed  by  La  Peyrade  well  nigh  terri- 
fied Cerizet  and  Dutocq.  After  that  conference  the 
poor  man's  banker  had  in  his  mind,  in  germ,  the  idea 
of  slipping  out  of  the  game,  as  he  found  himself 
associated  with  such  skilful  players.  To  win  the 
stake  at  any  price,  and  snatch  it  away  from  cleverer 
players,  even  though  it  be  by  cheating,  is  one  im- 
pulse of  the  type  of  vanity  peculiar  to  devotees  of 
the  green  cloth.  Whence  the  terrible  blow  La  Pey- 
rade was  destined  to  receive. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  197 

He  knew  his  two  associates  thoroughly ;  and  for 
that  reason,  nothing, — not  even  the  perpetual  work- 
ing of  his  intellectual  powers,  not  even  the  constant 
thought  required  by  his  ten-faced  character — 
fatigued  him  so  much  as  to  play  his  part  with  them. 
Dutocq  was  a  consummate  cheat,  and  Cerizet  had 
once  been  an  actor ;  they  were  artists  in  expression. 
An  inexpressive  face,  a  la  Talleyrand,  would  have 
caused  them  to  break  with  the  Provencal,  who  found 
that  he  was  in  their  clutches;  so  that  it  was  neces- 
sary for  him  to  assume  an  ease  of  manner,  a  confi- 
dence, a  disposition  to  play  fair,  which  is  certainly 
the  acme  of  art.  To  deceive  the  pit  is  a  triumph 
that  may  be  won  any  day,  but  to  deceive  Mademoi- 
selle Mars,  Frederick  Lemaitre,  Potier,  Talma, 
Monrose,  shows  the  consummate  artist. 

The  result  of  this  conference,  then,  was  to  cause 
La  Peyrade,  who  was  quite  as  clever  as  Cerizet,  to 
feel  a  secret  dread,  which,  during  the  last  part  of 
this  far-reaching  game,  heated  his  blood  and  excited 
his  heart  at  times  to  such  a  degree  that  he  became 
like  the  inveterate  gambler  following  the  roulette 
ball  with  his  eyes  when  he  has  staked  his  last  sou. 
At  such  times  the  faculties  act  with  a  clearsighted- 
ness, the  intelligence  attains  a  reach  for  which 
human  science  has  no  measure. 

On  the  day  following  the  conference  La  Peyrade 
dined  with  the  Thuilliers,  and,  on  the  transparent 
pretext  that  he  had  to  call  upon  Madame  de  Saint- 
Foudrille,  wife  of  the  famous  scientist,  whose 
interest  he  desired  to  secure,  Thuillier  carried  off 


198  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

his  wife  and  left  Theodose  with  Brigitte.  Neither 
Thuillier  nor  his  sister  nor  Theodose  was  the  dupe 
in  the  comedy  that  was  being  played;  diplomacy, 
the  old  beau  of  the  Empire  called  it 

"Young  man,  do  not  impose  upon  my  sister's  in- 
nocence, but  respect  it,"  said  Thuillier  solemnly 
before  leaving  the  house. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Theodose,  as  he  moved  his 
chair  near  the  couch  on  which  Brigitte  sat  knitting, 
"have  you  thought  of  enlisting  the  business  men  of 
the  arrondissement  in  Thuillier's  candidacy?" 

"How,  pray?"  said  she. 

"Why,  you  have  business  relations  with  Barbet 
and  Metivier. " 

"Of  course!  you're  right! — Bless  my  soul!"  said 
she  after  a  pause;  "you're  no  fool!" 

"When  one  is  fond  of  people  one  tries  to  be  of 
service  to  them!"  he  replied,  shortly  and  distantly. 

The  seduction  of  Brigitte  was  the  culminating 
point  in  this  long  battle  which  had  been  in  progress 
two  years, — it  might  be  compared  to  carrying  the 
great  redoubt  a  la  Moskowa,  it  was  the  climax  of 
the  battle.  But  it  was  necessary  that  the  old  maid 
should  be  possessed  as  the  devil  was  supposed  to 
possess  people  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  it  impossible  that  she  should 
ever  awake.  For  three  days  La  Peyrade  had 
been  comparing  his  own  powers  with  the  task, 
and  had  made  the  circuit  of  the  works  in  order 
to  judge  accurately  the  difficulties  to  be  encoun- 
tered! Flattery,  that  infallible  expedient  in  skilful 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  199 

hands,  passed  harmlessly  over  the  head  of  a  damsel 
who  had  known  for  many  years  that  she  had  no 
pretensions  to  beauty.  But  to  the  determined  man 
no  place  is  impregnable  and  the  Lamarques  will 
always  find  a  way  to  carry  Caprea  by  storm.  We 
must,  therefore,  omit  no  detail  of  the  memorable 
scene  that  took  place  on  that  evening;  everything 
has  its  importance — moments  of  silence,  lowered 
eyes,  tones  of  the  voice  and  glances. 

"But  you  have  already  proved  your  affection  for 
us,"  rejoined  Brigitte. 

"Did  your  brother  speak  to  you?" 

"No,  he  simply  said  that  you  had  something  to 
say  to  me." 

"And  so  I  have,  Mademoiselle,  for  you  are  the 
man  of  the  family;  but  on  reflection  I  have  found 
that  1  incur  considerable  risk  in  the  matter,  and  a  man 
doesn't  compromise  himself  thus  for  his  neighbors. 
— There's  a  whole  fortune  at  stake,  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  francs  a  year,  and  not  a  particle  of  specu- 
lation about  it, — real  estate! — The  necessity  of  giv- 
ing Thuillier  a  fortune  to  live  on  misled  me  first  of 
all.  There's  a  sort  of  fascination  about  it,  as  I  said 
to  him ; — for,  unless  a  man's  a  fool,  he  must  ask  him- 
self: 'Why  is  he  so  anxious  to  put  me  ahead?' 
And,  as  I  said  to  him :  in  working  for  him  I  flattered 
myself  that  I  was  working  for  myself.  If  he  wants 
to  be  a  deputy  two  things  are  absolutely  necessary : 
to  pay  the  tax  and  get  some  man  of  note  to  propose 
his  name.  If  I  carry  my  friendship  so  far  as  to  try 
and  help  him  compose  a  book  on  the  public  credit, 


200  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

or  any  other  subject,  no  matter  what — I  must  think 
about  his  fortune,  too, — and  it  would  be  absurd  for 
you  to  give  him  this  house. — " 

"My  brother? — Why  I'd  put  it  in  his  name  to- 
morrow!" cried  Brigitte;  "you  don't  know  me — " 

"I  don't  know  you  perfectly,"  said  La  Peyrade, 
"but  I  know  things  of  you  that  have  made  me  regret 
that  I  didn't  tell  you  everything  at  the  beginning, 
the  moment  I  devised  the  plan  to  which  Thuillier 
will  owe  his  election.  There  will  be  those  who 
envy  him  the  next  day,  and  he'll  certainly  have  a 
hard  task ;  but  we  must  cover  them  with  confusion, 
and  deprive  his  rivals  of  every  possible  pretext!" 

"But  about  this  business  you  were  speaking  of," 
said  Brigitte,  "what  are  the  difficulties  ?" 

"Mademoiselle,  the  difficulties  come  from  my  con- 
science,— and  I  certainly  shall  not  serve  you  in  this 
matter  without  consulting  my  confessor. — As  far  as 
the  world  is  concerned,  why  it's  perfectly  legal,  and 
I, — you  will  understand  that  I,  an  advocate  whose 
name  is  inscribed  on  the  roll,  and  member  of  an 
order  governed  by  the  strictest  rules, — am  incapable 
of  suggesting  a  blameworthy  project — My  excuse 
will  be  in  the  first  place  that  I  do  not  make  one  sou 
out  of  it." 

Brigitte  was  on  the  gridiron,  her  cheeks  were  on 
fire,  she  kept  breaking  her  yarn  and  tying  knots  in 
it,  and  did  not  know  what  attitude  to  take. 

"Nowadays,"  said  she,  "you  can't  get  forty 
thousand  francs  a  year  out  of  real  estate  unless  you 
lay  out  a  million  and  three  quarters. — " 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  2OI 

"Oh!  I'll  undertake  that  you  shall  see  the  prop- 
erty and  estimate  the  probable  income  from  it,  and 
I  will  see  that  Thuillier  gets  it  for  fifty  thousand 
francs." 

"Well,  if  you  should  put  such  a  thing  as  that  in 
our  way,"  cried  Brigitte,  excited  to  the  highest 
pitch  by  the  spur  of  her  thoroughly  aroused  cupid- 
ity, "why,  my  dear  Monsieur  Theodose — " 

She  paused. 

"Well,  Mademoiselle?" 

"You'll  have  done  a  good  stroke  of  work  for  your- 
self, perhaps — " 

"Ah!  if  Thuillier  has  told  you  my  secret,  I'll 
leave  the  house." 

Brigitte  raised  her  head. 

"Has  he  told  you  that  I  love  Celeste?" 

"No,  on  an  honest  woman's  word!"  cried  Bri- 
gitte; "but  1  was  going  to  speak  to  you  about  her." 

"To  offer  her  to  me! — Oh!  may  God  forgive  us! 
I  prefer  to  owe  her  hand  to  herself,  to  her  parents, 
to  her  unbiased  choice.  — No,  I  ask  nothing  from  you 
but  your  good  will  and  your  good  word. — Promise, 
as  Thuillier  has  done,  as  the  reward  of  my  services, 
your  friendship,  your  influence;  tell  me  that  you 
will  treat  me  as  a  son. — And,  in  that  case,  I  will 
consult  you.  I  will  abide  by  your  decision  and  say 
nothing  to  my  confessor.  In  these  two  years  that  I 
have  been  watching  the  family  into  which  I  hoped 
to  introduce  my  name,  and  which  I  should  be  happy 
to  endow  with  my  energetic  nature — for  I  shall  suc- 
ceed!— I  have  noticed  especially  your  old-fashioned 


202  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

probity,  your  upright,  unerring  judgment  You  are 
a  good  business  woman,  and  one  likes  to  have  such 
qualities  in  one's  neighbors. — With  a  mother-in-law 
of  your  strength  of  character  my  home  life  would  be 
freed  from  a  mass  of  petty  financial  details  which 
bar  one's  progress  in  politics,  as  soon  as  one  has  to 
give  his  attention  to  them. — I  really  admired  you  on 
Sunday  night — Ah!  You  were  beautiful  then! 
And  you  moved  everything  yourself!  In  ten  min- 
utes the  dining-room  was  cleared!  And,  without 
leaving  the  house,  you  laid  your  hand  on  everything 
that  was  needed  for  refreshments  and  for  the  sup- 
per.— 'That's  a  woman  in  ten  thousand!' — 1  said  to 
myself." 

Brigitte's  nostrils  dilated  as  she  breathed  in  the 
young  advocate's  words ;  and  he  cast  a  glance  at  her 
out  of  the  corner  of  his  eyes  to  enjoy  his  triumph. 
He  had  touched  the  sensitive  chord. 

"Ah!"  said  she,  "I'm  used  to  housekeeping;  I 
know  all  about  that!" 

"If  I  consult  a  clean,  pure  conscience?"  mused 
Theodose;  "yes,  that  will  satisfy  my  scruples." 

He  was  standing,  but  he  resumed  his  seat  and 
began : 

"This  is  how  the  case  stands,  my  dear  aunt — for 
you  will  be  my  aunt  in  a  way — " 

"Be  still,  you  bad  boy!"  said  Brigitte;  "go  on." 

"I  am  going  to  tell  you  everything  frankly,  and 
do  you  take  notice  that  I  compromise  myself  by  so 
doing,  for  these  are  professional  secrets  entrusted  to 
me  as  a  lawyer.  Imagine  if  you  please  that  we  are 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  203 

committing  together  the  crime  of  assailing  the  sanc- 
tity of  the  lawyer's  office!  A  notary  in  Paris  went 
into  partnership  with  an  architect,  and  they  pur- 
chased real  estate  and  built  upon  it;  at  the  present 
moment  values  are  falling  rapidly — they  went  astray 
in  their  reckoning, — but  we  won't  bother  about  all 
that. — Among  the  houses  put  up  by  them  during  their 
illegal  association,  for  notaries  are  not  permitted  to 
engage  in  building  operations — there  is  one  which, 
being  unfinished,  is  depreciating  so  rapidly  that  it 
can  be  bought  for  little  more  than  a  hundred  thous- 
and francs,  although  the  land  and  the  building  have 
already  cost  more  than  four  hundred  thousand. 
There  is  nothing  to  be  done  to  it  except  on  the 
inside,  and  as  the  necessary  finishings  are  all  ready 
in  the  contractors'  hands  and  they  will  sell  them  at 
a  bargain,  the  whole  additional  outlay  won't  be 
more  than  fifty  thousand  francs; — nothing  is  easier 
than  to  estimate  it  Its  location  is  such  that  the 
house  will  bring  in  forty  thousand  a  year,  clear  of 
taxes.  It  is  built  of  cut  stone  and  the  party-walls  are 
all  of  rough  stone ;  the  front  is  covered  with  rich 
carvings, — more  than  twenty  thousand  francs  were 
spent  on  them ;  the  window-frames  are  of  iron  in 
the  new  style,  called  Cremona." 

"Well,  what's  the  difficulty?" 

"It's  just  this:  the  notary  reserved  this  for  him- 
self out  of  the  spoil  he  gave  up,  and  he  is  one  of  the 
creditors,  in  the  name  of  some  friend,  who  is  look- 
ing on  while  the  property  is  sold  by  the  assignee  in 
bankruptcy ;  there  has  been  no  prosecution,  for  that 


204  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

would  cost  too  much — the  whole  thing  is  voluntary. 
Now,  this  notary  has  applied  to  one  of  my  clients 
to  lend  him  his  name  as  a  purchaser;  my  client  is 
a  poor  devil,  and  he  said  to  me:  'There's  fortune  in 
this,  if  we  can  get  it  away  from  the  notary — '  " 

"Such  things  are  done  in  business!" — said  Bri- 
gitte,  eagerly. 

"If  there  were  no  obstacle  but  that,"  rejoined 
Theodose,  "I  might  say,  as  one  of  my  friends  said 
to  a  pupil,  who  was  complaining  because  it  was  so 
hard  to  paint  great  pictures:  'My  dear  boy,  if  it 
weren't  so  hard,  our  footmen  would  do  it!'  But, 
Mademoiselle,  if  we  should  succeed  in  getting  the 
better  of  this  horrid  notary, — who,  upon  my  word, 
deserves  to  be  caught,  for  he  has  destroyed  many 
private  fortunes, — he's  a  very  shrewd  fellow, 
although  he  is  a  notary,  and  it  might  be  very  hard 
to  catch  him  twice.  When  a  person  purchases  real 
estate,  if  they  who  have  loaned  money  on  it  find 
themselves  in  danger  of  losing  something  on  account 
of  the  insufficiency  of  the  price,  they  have  the  right, 
within  a  certain  time,  to  outbid  the  purchaser, — 
that  is  to  say,  to  offer  a  larger  sum  and  keep  the 
property  for  themselves.  If  the  first  purchaser  can- 
not get  the  better  of  his  antagonist  within  the  time 
allowed  him  to  make  a  further  bid,  he  must  substi- 
tute some  new  ruse  for  the  former  one.  But  is  this 
really  a  legal  transaction? — Ought  one  to  enter  into 
it  for  the  benefit  of  the  family  he  wishes  to  enter? — 
That's  the  question  I've  been  asking  myself  for 
three  days. — " 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  2O$ 

Brigitte,  it  must  be  confessed,  hesitated,  and 
Theodose  thereupon  resorted  to  his  last  expedient 

"Take  the  night  for  reflection,"  he  said,  "and 
to-morrow  we  will  talk  further  about  it. — " 

"Listen,  my  boy,"  said  Brigitte,  looking  at  the 
advocate  with  an  expression  that  was  almost  amor- 
ous, "first  of  all  we  must  see  the  house.  Where  is 
it?" 

"Near  the  Madeleine!  that  will  be  the  heart  of 
Paris  ten  years  hence !  And,  if  you  did  but  know  it, 
people  have  had  their  eyes  on  that  region  since  1819! 
The  fortune  of  Du  Tillet,  the  banker,  was  obtained 
there. — The  notorious  failure  of  Roguin,  the  notary, 
which  threw  Paris  into  such  a  panic,  and  dealt  such 
a  blow  at  the  esteem  commonly  entertained  for  the 
notarial  office, — the  failure  that  broke  the  noted  per- 
fumer Birotteau, — had  no  other  cause  than  this,  that 
they  bought  property  there  for  speculative  purposes 
a  little  too  soon." 

"I  remember  that,"  said  Brigitte. 

"The  house  can  certainly  be  finished  by  the  end 
of  this  year,  and  the  rents  begin  to  come  in  about 
the  middle  of  next  year." 

"Can  we  go  there  to-morrow?" 

"My  dear  aunt,  1  am  at  your  service." 

"Stop that!  don't  call  me  that  before  anybody.— 
As  to  the  matter  in  hand,"  she  continued,  "1  can't 
form  any  opinion  until  I've  seen  the  house." — 

"It  has  six  floors,  nine  windows  on  the  front,  a 
fine  court-yard,  four  shops,  and  it's  on  a  corner. 
Oh!  the  notary  knows  what  he's  about,  never 


206  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

fear!  But  let  some  political  crisis  come,  and  consols 
and  all  other  securities  fall.  If  I  were  in  your 
place,  I'd  sell  everything  Madame  Thuillier  has  and 
all  your  holdings  in  the  public  funds,  to  buy  this  fine 
property  for  Thuillier,  and  then  make  good  the  poor 
pious  creature's  fortune  out  of  future  savings.  Can 
consols  ever  go  higher  than  they  are  to-day?  A 
hundred  and  twenty-two!  it's  perfectly  fabulous; 
you  must  make  haste." 

Brigitte  smacked  her  lips;  she  saw  a  way  of  keep- 
ing her  own  capital  intact  and  of  enriching  her 
brother  at  Madame  Thuillier's  expense. 

"My  brother  is  quite  right,"  said  she  to  Theodose, 
"you're  a  rare  man,  and  you'll  succeed." 

"He  will  go  ahead  of  me!"  replied  Theodose,  with 
a  sincerity  which  touched  the  old  maid's  heart 

"You  shall  be  one  of  the  family,"  said  she. 

"There  will  be  obstacles  in  the  way,"  said  The- 
odose, "Madame  Thuillier's  mind  is  a  little  awry 
and  she  scarcely  loves  me." 

"Ah!  I'd  like  to  see  her  interfere!"  cried  Brigitte. 
"Let  us  put  this  business  through  if  it  can  be  done, 
and  do  you  leave  your  interests  in  my  hands." 

"Thuillier,  member  of  the  General  Council,  pro- 
prietor of  an  estate  let  for  forty  thousand  a  year, 
decorated  with  the  Cross,  author  of  a  profound, 
thoughtful  political  work,  will  surely  be  chosen 
deputy  at  an  early  date.  But,  between  ourselves, 
my  dear  aunt,  a  man  can't  show  such  devotion  as 
this  to  anyone  except  his  real  father-in-law — " 

"You  are  right" 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  207 

"Although  I  have  no  fortune,  I  shall  have  doubled 
yours;  and  if  this  matter  is  carried  through  dis- 
creetly, I  shall  look  about  for  others." 

"Until  I  have  seen  the  house,"  said  Mademoiselle 
Thuillier,  "I  can  decide  upon  nothing." 

"Very  well;  we'll  take  a  carriage  to-morrow  and 
go  there;  I  will  have  a  permit  in  the  morning  to  in- 
spect the  house." 

"To-morrow  about  noon,"  Brigitte  replied,  giving 
him  her  hand  to  cement  the  compact  between  them ; 
but  he  deposited  thereupon  the  most  affectionate  and 
at  the  same  time  the  most  respectful  kiss  that 
Brigitte  had  ever  received. 

"Adieu,  my  child!"  said  she,  when  he  was  at  the 
door. 

She  hastily  summoned  one  of  her  servants,  and 
said  to  her  when  she  appeared : 

"Josephine,  go  at  once  to  Madame  Colleville's 
and  ask  her  to  come  here  and  talk  with  me." 

Fifteen  minutes  later  Flavie  entered  the  salon, 
where  Brigitte  was  pacing  back  and  forth  in  tre- 
mendous excitement 

"My  dear,"  said  she,  "you  can  do  me  a  very 
great  service  in  a  matter  that  concerns  our  dear  Ce- 
leste. You  know  Tullia,  the  dancer  at  the  Opera? 
— My  brother  used  to  din  her  praises  into  my  ears, 
when — " 

"Yes,  my  dear;  but  she  isn't  a  dancer  now,  she  is 
Madame  la  Comtesse  du  Bruel.  Isn't  her  husband 
a  peer  of  France — " 

"Is  she  still  fond  of  you?" 


208  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"We  never  see  each  other  now." 

"Well,  I  know  that  Chaffaroux,  the  rich  contrac- 
tor, is  her  uncle,"  said  the  old  maid.  "He's  an  old 
man  and  very  rich.  Do  you  go  and  see  your  former 
friend,  and  get  her  to  write  a  line  to  her  uncle  tell- 
ing him  that  he  would  do  her  a  very  great  favor  if 
he  would  consent  to  give  a  little  friendly  advice 
upon  a  matter  of  business  that  you  wish  to  consult 
him  upon,  and  then  we'll  go  and  see  him  at  one 
o'clock  to-morrow.  But  tell  her  that  she  must  make 
him  promise  absolute  secrecy.  Go,  my  child! 
Celeste,  our  dear  girl,  will  be  a  millionaire,  and  she 
shall  have,  from  my  hand,  you  understand,  a  hus- 
band who  will  place  her  at  the  top  of  the  tree." 

"Do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  the  first  letter  of  his 
name?" 

"Yes." 

"Theodose  de  la  Peyrade!  You  are  quite  right. 
He's  a  man,  who,  with  such  a  woman  as  you  behind 
him,  may  yet  be  a  minister!" 

"It  was  God  who  sent  him  to  our  house,"  cried 
the  old  maid. 

At  that  moment,  Monsieur  and  Madame  Thuillier 
returned. 


Five  days  afterward,  in  the  month  of  April,  the 
warrant  summoning  the  electors  to  assemble  on  the 
twentieth  of  that  month  for  the  selection  of  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Municipal  Council,  was  inserted  in  the 
Moniteur  and  posted  throughout  Paris.  For  several 
weeks  the  so-called  ministry  of  March  i  had  been 
in  office.  Brigitte  was  in  a  most  charming  humor, 
for  she  had  verified  all  Theodose's  assertions.  Old 
Chaff aroux  inspected  the  house  from  top  to  bottom 
and  declared  it  to  be  a  masterpiece  of  the  builder's 
art.  Poor  Grindot,  the  architect  who  was  interested 
in  the  affairs  of  the  notary  and  Claparon,  thought 
that  he  was  working  for  the  contractor;  Madame  du 
Bruel's  uncle  imagined  that  his  niece  was  personally 
interested,  and  he  said  that  he  would  finish  the 
house  for  thirty  thousand  francs.  And  so  La  Pey- 
rade  had  been,  for  a  week,  Brigitte's  god;  she 
proved  to  him  by  the  most  innocently  pernicious 
arguments  that  fortune  must  be  seized  and  held 
when  she  comes  within  reach. 

"Well,  if  there  is  anything  wrong  about  it,"  she 
said  to  him  one  day  in  the  garden,  "you  can  ease 
your  mind  in  the  confessional — " 

"Nonsense,  my  dear,"  cried  Thuillier;  "deuce 
take  it!  a  man  owes  something  to  his  relations — " 

"I  will  make  up  my  mind  to  do  it,"  replied  La 
14  (209) 


210  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Peyrade,  with  emotion,  "but  only  on  certain  condi- 
tions. I  do  not  propose  to  be  taxed  with  cupidity 
or  avariciousness  because  1  marry  Celeste.  If  you 
give  me  cause  for  remorse,  at  least  let  me  remain 
what  I  am  in  the  eyes  of  the  public.  Give  to 
Celeste,  my  old  friend  Thuillier,  nothing  but  a  re- 
versionary interest  in  the  house  I  am  going  to  put  in 
your  way — " 

"That's  fair." 

"Don't  rob  yourself,"  said  Theodose,  "and  my 
dear  little  aunt  must  bear  the  same  thing  in  mind  in 
reference  to  the  contract.  Invest  the  balance  of  the 
floating  capital  in  the  funds  in  Madame  Thuillier's 
name,  and  let  her  do  what  she  pleases.  Then  we 
will  all  live  together,  and  I  will  undertake  to  make 
my  own  fortune  as  soon  as  my  mind  is  at  rest  con- 
cerning the  future." 

"That's  what  I  like,"  cried  Thuillier.  "Spoken 
like  an  honest  man." 

"Let  me  kiss  you,  my  boy!"  cried  the  old  maid; 
"but  there  must  be  a  dot  all  the  same,  and  we'll 
give  Celeste  sixty  thousand  francs." 

"For  her  dress,"  said  La  Peyrade. 

"We  are  all  three  honorable  people,"  cried  Thuil- 
lier. "It's  agreed  that  you  will  arrange  the  affair 
of  the  house  for  us,  we  will  write  my  political  work 
together,  and  you  will  do  your  best  to  get  me  the 
Cross. — " 

"That  will  come  on  the  first  of  May,  as  you  will 
then  be  a  Municipal  Councillor.  But,  do  you,  my 
good  friend,  and  you,  too,  dear  aunt,  preserve  the 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  211 

utmost  secrecy,  and  don't  listen  to  the  slanderous 
stories  that  will  be  flying  around  about  me  when  all 
the  men  I  propose  to  hoodwink  turn  against  me.  I 
shall  be  a  vagabond,  a  knave,  a  dangerous  man,  a 
Jesuit,  an  ambitious  scoundrel,  a  fortune-hunter. — 
Will  you  listen  to  such  charges  without  losing  your 
head?" 

"Never  fear,"  said  Brigitte. 

From  that  day  forth  Thuillier  became  everybody's 
good  friend.  Good  friend  was  the  name  given  him 
by  Theodose,  in  tones  expressive  of  so  many  differ- 
ent varieties  of  affection,  that  Flavie  was  bewildered. 
But  the  dear  aunt,  the  title  which  so  flattered 
Brigitte,  was  used  only  among  the  Thuilliers,  some- 
times before  Flavie,  and  was  whispered  when  others 
were  present.  The  activity  of  Theodose  and  of 
Dutocq,  Cerizet,  Barbet,  Metivier,  the  Minards,  the 
Phellions,  the  Laudigeois,  Colleville,  Pron  and 
Barniol,  was  something  incredible.  Great  and 
small  alike  put  their  hands  to  the  plough.  Cadenet 
procured  thirty  votes  in  his  section;  he  wrote  for 
seven  electors  who  could  do  no  more  than  make 
their  mark.  On  the  thirtieth  of  April  Thuillier  was 
declared  a  Member  of  the  General  Council  of  the 
Department  of  the  Seine,  by  a  most  imposing 
majority,  for  he  received  all  but  sixty  of  the  votes 
cast.  On  May  i,  Thuillier  joined  the  Council  and 
went  with  it  to  the  Tuileries  to  congratulate  the 
king  upon  his  birthday.  He  returned  radiant  with 
joy !  He  had  entered  the  chateau  in  Minard's  wake. 

Ten   days   after  the  election  a  yellow    placard 


212  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

announced  the  sale  of  the  house  under  voluntary 
bankruptcy  proceedings,  the  upset  price  being  fixed 
at  seventy-five  thousand  francs;  the  final  adjust- 
ment was  to  take  place  in  the  latter  part  of  July. 
On  this  subject  there  was  an  understanding  between 
Cerizet  and  Claparon,  whereby  Cerizet  promised  to 
contribute  fifteen  thousand  francs, — in  words,  be  it 
understood, — to  Claparon,  in  case  he  should  succeed 
in  hoodwinking  the  notary  beyond  the  time  allowed 
by  law  for  raising  the  bid.  Mademoiselle  Thuillier, 
when  notified  by  Theodose,  agreed  unconditionally 
to  this  secret  arrangement,  for  she  understood  that 
the  abettors  of  this  pretty  bit  of  treachery  must  be 
paid.  The  money  was  to  pass  through  the  conscien- 
tious advocate's  hands.  Claparon  made  an  appoint- 
ment at  midnight  on  Place  de  1'Observatoire  with 
his  accomplice,  the  notary,  whose  office  was  still 
unsold,  although  offered  for  sale  by  a  decision  of  the 
disciplinary  committee  of  the  Notaries  of  Paris. 

This  young  man,  Leopold  Mannequin's  successor, 
had  undertaken  to  attain  fortune  by  running  to  meet 
it  instead  of  going  at  a  foot  pace;  he  still  fancied 
that  better  things  were  in  store  for  him,  and  he  was 
trying  to  smooth  matters  over.  In  this  interview 
he  went  so  far  as  to  offer  ten  thousand  francs  to 
make  himself  secure  in  this  corrupt  affair;  he  was 
to  hand  the  sum  to  Claparon  after  the  purchaser  at 
the  sale  had  executed  a  defeasance.  The  notary 
knew  that  this  money  was  all  that  Claparon  had  to 
depend  upon  for  the  nucleus  of  a  new  fortune,  and 
he  thought  he  was  sure  of  him. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  213 

"Who  is  there  in  Paris  who  could  give  me  such  a 
commission  for  an  affair  of  this  sort?"  said  Claparon, 
with  feigned  simplicity.  "Go  to  sleep  on  both 
ears ;  I  shall  put  forward  as  the  ostensible  purchaser 
one  of  those  so-called  honorable  men  who  are  too 
stupid  to  have  ideas  of  your  sort.  He's  an  old  re- 
tired government  clerk;  you  give  him  the  money  to 
pay,  and  he'll  sign  your  defeasance." 

When  the  notary  had  made  it  clear  to  Claparon 
that  he  could  get  no  more  than  ten  thousand  francs 
out  of  him,  Cerizet  offered  his  quondam  partner 
twelve  thousand  and  then  demanded  fifteen  thousand 
from  Theodose,  with  the  intention  of  turning  over 
only  twelve  thousand  to  Claparon.  All  this  hag- 
gling among  these  four  men  was  seasoned  with 
most  exalted  speeches  concerning  sentiment  and 
business  rectitude;  and  concerning  what  those  men, 
whose  destiny  it  was  to  work  thus  in  unison  and  to 
be  constantly  together,  owed  to  one  another.  While 
these  submarine  works  were  being  constructed  for 
the  benefit  of  Thuillier,  to  whom  Theodose  described 
them  with  continual  asseverations  of  his  profound 
distaste  for  meddling  in  such  underhand  business, 
the  two  friends  were  meditating  together  upon  the 
great  work  which  my  good  friend  was  to  give  to  the 
world ;  and  the  member  of  the  General  Council  of 
the  Seine  became  firmly  imbued  with  the  conviction 
that  he  could  never  make  anything  of  himself  with- 
out the  aid  of  this  man  of  genius,  whose  intellect 
aroused  his  wondering  admiration,  whose  marvelous 
facility  surprised  him,  so  that  each  day  he  discovered 


214  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

some  new  unanswerable  argument  for  making  him 
his  son-in-law.  After  the  first  of  June,  Theodose 
dined  four  days  out  of  the  seven  with  his  good  friend. 

It  was  the  moment  when  Theodose  reigned  with- 
out a  rival  over  the  whole  family;  he  was  honored 
with  the  approbation  of  all  their  friends.  This  is 
how  it  came  about.  The  Phellions,  when  they  heard 
Brigitte  and  Thuillier  singing  Theodose's  praises, 
feared  to  offend  those  two  powers,  and  so  they 
joined  in  the  chorus,  however  much  these  perpetual 
eulogies  might  annoy  them  or  seem  exaggerated  to 
them.  It  was  the  same  with  the  Minard  family. 
Moreover,  La  Peyrade's  bearing,  now  that  he  had 
become  the  friend  of  the  family,  was  invariably 
sublime;  he  disarmed  suspicion  by  the  way  in 
which  he  effaced  himself;  he  was  like  an  additional 
piece  of  furniture  in  the  house;  he  made  the  Phel- 
lions and  the  Minards  believe  that  he  had  been 
reckoned  up  and  weighed  by  Brigitte  and  Thuillier 
and  found  too  light  to  be  anything  more  than  a 
pleasant  young  fellow  for  whom  they  might  do 
something. 

"Perhaps  he  thinks  my  sister  will  put  him  down 
in  her  will,"  said  Thuillier  one  day  to  Minard;  "he 
hardly  knows  her." 

This  remark,  which  was  Th6odose's  work,  quieted 
the  suspicious  Minard's  anxiety. 

"He  is  devoted  to  us,"  said  the  old  maid  to  Phel- 
lion  one  day,  "but  indeed  he  ought  to  be  grateful  to 
us;  we  give  him  his  rent,  and  he  almost  lives  here." 

This  fling,  which  was  also  inspired  by  Theodose, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  215 

flew  from  ear  to  ear  in  the  families  which  fre- 
quented the  Thuillier  salon,  and  put  all  fear  to  flight. 
Theodose,  too,  emphasized  the  caustic  utterances  of 
Thuillier  and  his  sister  by  affecting  the  servile 
demeanor  of  a  parasite.  At  whist  he  explained  his 
good  friend's  misplays.  His  smile,  as  unchanging 
and  benignant  as  Madame  Thuillier's,  was  ever  ready 
to  welcome  the  inane  vulgar  witticisms  of  the 
brother  and  sister. 

He  obtained  what  he  most  ardently  desired,  the 
contempt  of  his  real  antagonists,  and  used  it  as  a 
cloak  to  hide  his  power.  For  four  months  his  face 
wore  the  torpid  expression  of  a  serpent  as  he  sali- 
vates and  digests  his  prey.  He  would  run  into  the 
garden  at  intervals  with  Colleville  or  Flavie  to  lay 
aside  his  mask,  to  laugh  at  will,  to  rest  and  renew 
his  strength,  abandoning  himself  to  nervous  out- 
breaks of  passion  in  the  presence  of  his  future 
mother-in-law,  which  terrified  her  or  touched  her 
heart. 

"Don't  you  pity  me?"  he  said  to  her  the  night 
before  the  preliminary  adjudication,  at  which  Thuil- 
lier bought  the  house  for  seventy-five  thousand 
francs.  "To  see  a  man  like  me  crawling  about  like 
a  cat,  holding  back  my  epigrams,  eating  my  own 
gall ! — and  to  cap  the  climax,  having  to  put  up  with 
your  cruelty!" 

"My  friend,  my  child!"  said  Flavie,  who  had  not 
yet  made  up  her  mind  what  course  to  pursue. 

These  words  are  a  thermometer  which  will  indi- 
cate the  temperature  at  which  this  accomplished 


2l6  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

artist  maintained  his  intrigue  with  Flavie.  The 
poor  woman  was  wavering  between  the  promptings 
of  her  heart  and  the  precepts  of  morality,  between 
religion  and  the  mysterious  passion. 

Meanwhile,  Felix  Phellion,  with  praiseworthy  de- 
votion and  perseverance,  was  giving  lessons  to 
young  Colleville;  he  was  most  lavish  of  his  time, 
and  fancied  that  he  was  working  for  his  future 
family.  In  acknowledgment  of  his  zeal,  and  by 
Theodose's  advice,  the  professor  was  invited  to  dine 
with  the  Collevilles  on  Thursdays,  and  the  advocate 
never  failed  to  be  there.  Flavie  made  purses,  slip- 
pers and  cigar-cases  for  the  happy  youth,  who 
would  exclaim: 

"I  am  too  well  paid,  Madame,  by  the  joy  it  affords 
me  to  be  of  service  to  you." 

"We  aren't  rich,  Monsieur,"  Colleville  would 
reply,  "but,  deuce  take  it!  we're  not  ungrateful." 

Old  Phellion  would  rub  his  hands  as  he  listened 
to  his  son  on  his  return  from  these  joyous  occasions, 
and  he  could  already  see  his  dear,  his  noble  Felix 
leading  Celeste  to  the  altar ! 

Nevertheless,  the  more  truly  Celeste  loved  him, 
the  more  serious  and  thoughtful  was  her  demeanor 
with  Felix,  especially  as  her  mother  had  preached 
rather  sharply  to  her  one  evening. 

"Don't give  young  Phellion  any  hope,  my  child," 
she  said.  "Neither  your  father  nor  1  will  have  any 
hand  in  marrying  you;  you  have  definite  prospects 
to  keep  in  mind;  it's  of  much  less  importance  to  be 
agreeable  to  a  penniless  professor  than  to  make  sure 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  217 

of  Mademoiselle  Brigitte's  affection  and  your  god- 
father's. If  you  don't  want  to  kill  your  mother, 
my  angel, — yes,  kill  me, — obey  me  blindly  in  this 
affair,  and  get  the  idea  fixed  in  your  brain  that  we 
desire  your  happiness  before  everything." 

As  the  final  adjudication  was  appointed  for  the 
latter  part  of  July,  Theodose  advised  Brigitte, 
toward  the  end  of  June,  to  make  her  preparations, 
and  she  sold  all  of  her  sister's  holdings  and  her  own 
in  the  public  funds  just  in  time.  The  catastrophe 
of  the  treaty  between  the  Four  Powers,  a  downright 
insult  to  France,  is  a  fact  in  history,  but  it  is  neces- 
sary to  remember  that,  from  early  in  July  until 
late  in  August,  French  rentes,  affected  by  the  pros- 
pect of  war,  which  Monsieur  Thiers  was  a  little  too 
willing  to  risk,  fell  twenty  francs,  and  the  three  per 
cents  sold  at  sixty.  Nor  was  that  all ;  the  financial 
panic  had  a  most  disastrous  effect  upon  real  estate 
values  in  Paris,  and  all  property  of  that  description 
sold  at  auction  in  those  days  brought  almost  noth- 
ing. Thus  Theodose  was  proved  to  be  a  prophet,  a 
man  of  genius,  in  the  eyes  of  Brigitte  and  Thuillier, 
to  whom  the  property  was  finally  awarded  for  sev- 
enty-five thousand  francs.  The  notary,  who  was 
involved  in  this  political  disaster,  and  whose  office 
was  sold,  found  it  advisable  to  go  into  the  country 
for  a  few  days;  but  he  clung  to  Claparon's  ten 
thousand  francs.  By  Theodose's  advice,  Thuillier 
made  a  contract  with  Grindot,  who  supposed  he  was 
finishing  the  house  for  the  notary;  and  as  crowds 
of  mechanics  were  left  with  nothing  to  do  but 


2l8  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

fold  their  hands  by  the  suspension  of  work  on  many 
buildings  during  this  period  of  financial  distur- 
bance, the  architect  was  able  to  complete  a  task  after 
his  own  heart  in  splendid  style  at  a  very  low  figure. 
For  twenty-five  thousand  francs  he  gilded  four 
salons! — Theodose  demanded  that  the  contract  be 
put  in  writing  and  that  fifty  thousand  francs  be  sub- 
stituted for  twenty-five. 

This  purchase  doubled  Thuillier's  importance. 
As  for  the  notary,  he  had  lost  his  head  in  conse- 
quence of  the  political  upheaval,  which  was  like  a 
thunderbolt  out  of  a  cloudless  sky.  Theodose,  sure 
of  his  ascendancy,  relying  upon  the  services  he  had 
rendered  the  family,  holding  Thuillier  fast  by  vir- 
tue of  the  work  they  were  jointly  engaged  upon, 
and  vastly  admired  by  Brigitte  because  of  his  dis- 
cretion, for  he  never  made  the  slightest  allusion  to 
his  own  narrow  means  and  never  mentioned  money, 
— Theodose  began  to  assume  a  somewhat  less  ser- 
vile manner  than  formerly. 

"Nothing  can  deprive  you  of  our  esteem,"  said 
Brigitte  and  Thuillier;  "this  is  your  home.  Min- 
ard's  opinion  and  Phellion's,  which  you  seem  so 
afraid  of,  are  worth  as  much  as  one  of  Victor  Hugo's 
couplets  to  us.  So,  hold  up  your  head, — let  them 
say  what  they  please!" 

"We  need  them  to  secure  Thuillier's  election  to 
the  Chamber !"  said  Theodose.  "Follow  my  advice ; 
you  find  it's  good,  don't  you?  When  the  house  is 
really  yours,  you  will  have  got  it  for  nothing,  for 
you  can  buy  three  per  cents  at  sixty  in  Madame 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  219 

Thuillier's  name,  and  restore  her  whole  fortune. 
Just  wait  until  the  time  has  expired  for  raising  our 
bid,  and  have  the  fifteen  thousand  francs  ready  for 
our  rascals." 

Brigitte  did  not  wait;  she  invested  all  her  capital, 
except  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  francs, 
and,  deducting  her  sister-in-law's  fortune,  she  pur- 
chased four  hundred  thousand  francs  of  three 
per  cents — twelve  thousand  a  year — in  Madame 
Thuillier's  name,  for  two  hundred  and  forty  thous- 
and; and  ten  thousand  a  year  in  the  same  funds  in 
her  own  name,  having  determined  to  have  done 
with  the  bother  of  discounting  notes.  She  con- 
sidered it  certain  that  her  brother  would  have  forty 
thousand  a  year  besides  his  pension;  Madame  Thuil- 
lier  had  twelve  thousand  a  year,  and  she  herself 
eighteen  thousand ;  in  all  seventy  thousand  a  year, 
besides  the  house  they  occupied,  which  she  valued 
at  eight  thousand. 

"Now  we're  as  well  off  as  the  Minards!"— she 
cried. 

"Let's  not  shout  victory  yet,"  said  Theodose: 
"the  time  for  raising  our  bid  won't  expire  for  a 
week.  I  have  attended  to  your  business  for  you, 
but  my  own  affairs  are  in  a  very  bad  way." 

"My  dear  child,  you  have  friends!"  cried  Brigitte, 
"and  if  you  want  twenty-five  louis  you  will  always 
find  them  here!" 

At  that  Theodose  exchanged  a  smile  with  Thuil- 
lier,  who  took  him  aside  and  said : 

"You  must  excuse  my  sister;   she  looks  at  the 


220  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

world  through  the  neck  of  a  bottle. — But  if  you 
should  need  twenty-five  thousand  francs,  I  would  lend 
them  to  you, — out  of  my  first  rents,"  he  added. 

"Thuillier,  I  have  a  rope  around  my  neck," 
cried  Theodose.  "Since  I  have  been  an  advocate  I 
have  given  notes — but  mum's  the  word! — "  he 
added,  as  if  dismayed  at  having  divulged  the  secret 
of  his  situation.  "I  am  in  the  clutches  of  a  lot  of 
scoundrels, — 1  propose  to  crush  them — " 

Theodose  had  a  twofold  motive  in  letting  his 
secret  escape  him;  to  test  Thuillier,  and  to  ward  off 
a  dangerous  blow  which  might  be  aimed  at  him  in 
the  bitter,  ominous  struggle  he  had  long  anticipated. 
Two  words  will  suffice  to  explain  his  horrible  plight 

During  the  period  of  utter  destitution,  through 
which  he  had  passed,  Cerizet  was  the  only  person 
who  came  to  see  him, — and  he  did  so  one  very 
cold  day  in  the  attic  where  he  was  lying  in  bed 
for  lack  of  clothes.  He  had  nothing  on  but  a 
shirt.  For  three  days  he  had  lived  on  a  single  loaf 
of  bread,  cutting  it  off  in  small  pieces  with  great 
forethought;  and  he  was  just  asking  himself: 
"What  am  I  to  do?"  when  his  former  patron 
appeared,  having  been  released  from  prison  by  par- 
don. It  woald  be  useless  to  tell  of  the  schemes 
formed  by  these  two  men  as  they  sat  before  a  fire  of 
twigs,  one  enveloped  in  his  landlady's  coverlet,  the 
other  in  his  infamy.  The  next  day  Cerizet,  who 
had  met  Dutocq  during  the  morning,  brought  Theo- 
dose a  pair  of  breeches,  a  waistcoat,  a  coat,  a  hat 
and  boots  purchased  at  the  Temple,  and  carried  him 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  221 

off  to  dinner  at  Pinson's,  Rue  de  1'Ancienne-Come- 
die,  where  the  Provencal  ate  half  of  a  dinner  that 
cost  forty-seven  francs.  At  dessert,  between  two 
glasses  of  wine,  Cerizet  said  to  his  friend: 

"Will  you  give  me  your  notes  for  fifty  thousand 
francs  payable  when  I  procure  your  admission  as  an 
advocate?" 

"You  wouldn't  get  five  thousand  francs  for  them, " 
replied  Theodose. 

"That  doesn't  concern  you;  you'll  pay  them  in 
full;  that's  our  share,  his  who  pays  for  this  din- 
ner, and  mine,  in  a  little  matter  in  which  you  risk 
nothing,  but  which  will  be  worth  to  you  the  title  of 
advocate,  a  handsome  practice,  and  the  hand  of  a 
damsel  about  the  age  of  an  old  dog,  and  with  twenty 
to  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year.  Neither  Dutocq 
nor  I  can  marry  her ;  so  we  must  fit  you  out,  make 
you  look  like  an  honest  man,  feed  you,  set  you  up 
in  lodgings  and  furnish  them  for  you. — Of  course, 
we  must  be  secured.  I  don't  say  that  for  myself, 
for  I  know  you,  but  for  monsieur  who  will  act 
through  me. — We'll  fit  you  out  as  a  corsair,  eh?  to 
trade  in  white  women.  If  we  don't  capture  that 
dot,  why,  we'll  try  something  else. — Between  our- 
selves we  don't  need  to  handle  things  with  tongs, 
that's  plain  enough.  We  will  give  you  your  instruc- 
tions, for  the  affair  is  likely  to  be  a  long  one; 
there'll  be  lots  of  pulling  and  hauling! — 1  have  the 
stamps  all  ready — " 

"Bring  pen  and  ink,  waiter!"  said  Theodose. 

"That's  the  kind  of  man  I  like!"  cried  Dutocq. 


222  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Sign  'Theodose  de  la  Peyrade,'  and  describe 
yourself:  'Advocate,  RueSaint-Dominique-d'Enfer,' 
under  the  words:  Accepted  for  ten  thousand;  we'll 
put  in  the  date,  and  bring  suit  against  you,  all  in 
secret,  so  as  to  have  the  right  to  arrest  you.  The 
owners  ought  to  have  some  security  when  the  cap- 
tain and  his  brig  are  at  sea." 

On  the  day  following  his  reception  as  an  advo- 
cate, the  clerk  to  the  justice  of  the  peace  did  Ceri- 
zet  the  service  of  issuing  a  writ  secretly;  he  called 
upon  the  advocate  in  the  evening,  and  everything 
was  arranged  without  publicity.  The  Tribunal  of 
Commerce  issues  such  judgments  by  the  hundred 
at  every  session. 

Everyone  knows  the  strict  regulations  of  the 
council  of  the  order  of  advocates  of  the  Paris  bar. 
That  body  and  the  order  of  attorneys  maintain 
stern  discipline  among  their  members.  An  advo- 
cate who  becomes  liable  to  imprisonment  at  Clichy 
would  be  stricken  from  the  roll.  Cerizet,  by 
Dutocq's  advice,  had  taken  the  only  measures 
against  their  puppet  that  seemed  certain  to  assure 
them  twenty-five  thousand  francs  each  out  of  Ce- 
leste's dowry.  When  he  signed  the  notes  Theo- 
dose saw  nothing  beyond  the  fact  that  his  life  was 
saved;  but  as  the  horizon  grew  brighter,  as  he 
mounted  step  by  step  to  a  more  and  more  elevated 
position  on  the  social  ladder,  playing  the  part 
assigned  him,  he  dreamed  of  getting  rid  of  his  two 
partners.  If  he  could  get  twenty-five  thousand 
francs  from  Thuillier,  he  hoped  to  be  able  to 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  223 

compromise  with  Cerizet,  and  take  up  his  notes  at 
fifty  per  cent  of  their  face  value. 

Unhappily  such  infamous  speculations  as  this  are 
by  no  means  exceptional,  they  are  carried  on  in 
Paris  with  too  little  pretence  of  disguise  for  the  his- 
torian to  pass  them  by  in  an  accurate  and  complete 
picture  of  society.  Dutocq,  a  thorough  libertine, 
still  owed  fifteen  thousand  francs  of  the  price  of  his 
clerkship,  and,  in  the  hope  of  a  successful  issue  to 
his  speculation,  he  was  endeavoring,  to  use  a  vulgar 
expression,  to  stretch  the  thong  until  the  latter  part 
of  1840. 

Up  to  this  time  no  one  of  the  three  had  flinched 
or  howled.  Each  of  them  realized  his  strength 
and  was  conscious  of  the  danger.  The  same  sus- 
picion, the  same  close  watch  upon  one  another, 
the  same  apparent  confidence,  the  same  threaten- 
ing silence  or  threatening  glance  when  their  mutual 
distrust  showed  for  a  moment  in  their  faces  or  their 
words.  For  the  last  two  months  Theodose's  position 
had  given  him  an  advantage  quite  unshared  by 
them.  Dutocq  and  Cerizet  had  a  heap  of  pow- 
der under  their  skiff  and  the  match  was  always 
lighted;  but  the  wind  might  blow  out  the  match  and 
the  devil  might  drench  the  powder. 

The  moment  when  wild  animals  are  about  to  feed 
has  always  been  deemed  the  most  dangerous,  and 
this  moment  arrived  with  these  three  starving  tigers. 
Cerizet's  eyes  would  sometimes  say  to  La  Peyrade, 
with  that  revolutionary  gleam  which  sovereigns 
have  seen  twice  in  this  century : 


224  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"I  have  made  you  king,  and  I  am  nobody.  So 
long  as  1  am  not  everything,  1  am  nobody." 

A  jealous  reaction  was  carrying  everything  before 
it  like  an  avalanche  in  Cerizet's  mind.  Dutocq 
found  himself  at  the  mercy  of  his  enriched  copyist 
Theodose  would  have  liked  to  burn  up  his  two  fellow- 
swindlers  and  their  papers  in  two  separate  fires.  All 
three  were  too  intent  upon  concealing  their  thoughts 
for  the  others  not  to  guess  them.  Theodose's  life 
was  worse  than  three  hells  as  he  thought  behind  his 
cards  of  his  stake  and  his  future.  His  exclamation 
to  Thuillier  was  a  shriek  of  despair;  he  took  sound- 
ings in  the  old  bourgeois'  waters,  and  found  only 
twenty-five  thousand  francs. 

"And  to  be  worse  than  nobody  a  month  hence, 
perhaps!"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  went  to  his 
room. 

He  conceived  an  intense  hatred  of  the  Thuilliers. 
But  he  held  Thuillier  by  a  harpoon  fastened  in  the 
very  vitals  of  his  self-esteem  by  a  projected  work 
entitled,  Concerning  Taxes  and  the  Sinking- Fund, 
wherein  he  proposed  to  arrange  the  ideas  published 
by  the  Saint-Simonian  Globe  newspaper,  coloring 
them  with  his  Southern  style,  and  systematizing 
them.  Thuillier's  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  subject- 
matter  was  Theodose's  reliance.  He  took  his  stand 
thereon,  and  resolved  to  combat  the  vanity  of  a 
donkey  with  no  better  base  of  operations  than  that. 
It  may  prove  to  be  of  granite  or  of  sand,  according 
to  the  character  of  the  man.  Upon  reflection,  he 
was  glad  that  he  had  confided  in  him. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  22$ 

"When  he  sees  that  I  make  his  fortune  certain  by 
turning  over  the  fifteen  thousand  francs  just  when 
I  am  so  sorely  in  need  of  money,  he  will  look  upon 
me  as  the  god  of  probity." 

Claparon  and  Cerizet  took  the  following  measures 
with  the  notary  two  days  before  the  expiration  of 
the  time  allowed  for  outbidding  the  purchaser  of 
the  house.  Cerizet,  having  received  the  pass-word 
from  Claparon,  who  told  him  where  the  notary  was 
in  hiding,  went  to  see  him. 

"One  of  my  friends,"  he  said,  "Claparon,  whom 
you  know,  asked  me  to  come  and  see  you ;  he  will 
look  for  you  day  after  to-morrow  in  the  evening, 
you  know  where;  he  has  the  paper  you  are  waiting 
for,  and  he  will  hand  it  to  you  in  exchange  for  the  ten 
thousand  francs  agreed  upon ;  but  I  am  to  be  present 
when  the  money  is  paid,  for  he  owes  me  five  thous- 
and,— and  I  warn  you,  my  dear  sir,  that  the  name 
in  the  defeasance  is  left  blank." 

"I  will  be  there,"  said  the  ex-notary. 

The  poor  devil  waited  all  night  at  the  rendezvous 
in  an  agony  of  anxiety  that  can  be  imagined,  for  it 
was  a  question  of  his  salvation  or  his  final  ruin. 
But,  at  sunrise,  instead  of  Claparon  a  sheriff's  offi- 
cer appeared,  armed  with  a  judgment  in  due  form, 
and  informed  him  that  he  must  accompany  him  to 
Clichy. 

Cerizet  had  made  a  bargain  with  one  of  the  ill- 
fated  notary's  creditors,  undertaking  to  betray  him 
in  consideration  of  half  the  amount  of  his  debt.  Out 
of  the  ten  thousand  francs  intended  for  Claparon, 
15 


226  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

the  victim  of  this  ambuscade  was  compelled  to  pay 
six  thousand  on  the  spot  to  retain  his  freedom. 
That  was  the  full  amount  of  the  debt 

"There's  a  thousand  crowns,"  said  Cerizet  to 
himself,  as  he  pocketed  his  share  of  the  extortion, 
"with  which  to  pack  Claparon  off." 

He  called  again  upon  the  notary  and  said  to  him : 
"Claparon's  a  mean  scoundrel,  Monsieur!  he  has 
received  fifteen  thousand  francs  from  the  purchaser, 
who  retains  the  property. — Threaten  to  disclose  his 
hiding-place  to  his  creditors,  and  to  enter  a  com- 
plaint against  him  alleging  fraudulent  bankruptcy, 
and  he'll  give  you  half  of  it" 

In  his  rage  the  notary  wrote  a  blustering  letter  to 
Claparon.  Claparon  was  in  despair,  fearing  arrest, 
and  Cerizet  undertook  to  procure  him  a  passport. 

"You  have  made  a  fool  of  me  many  a  time,  Clap- 
aron," said  Cerizet;  "but  do  you  listen  to  me  now 
and  judge  me.  My  whole  fortune  is  a  thousand 
crowns, — I  am  going  to  give  them  to  you !  Go  to 
America,  and  start  over  again  to  make  your  fortune, 
as  I  am  doing  here." 

That  evening  Claparon,  disguised  by  Cerizet  as 
an  old  woman,  started  for  Havre  by  diligence. 
Cerizet  thus  found  himself  in  a  position  to  receive 
the  fifteen  thousand  francs  demanded  by  Claparon, 
and  he  calmly  awaited  Theodose's  coming,  without 
undertaking  to  hasten  matters.  This  man,  whose 
intelligence  was  really  of  a  rare  order,  had  at  his 
disposal,  under  the  name  of  a  creditor  for  two 
thousand  francs,  a  contractor  for  labor  who  was  not 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  227 

upon  the  list  of  those  regularly  entitled  to  offer  a  bid 
in  excess  of  the  sum  paid  at  the  forced  sale.  It  was  an 
idea  of  Dutocq's,  which  Cerizet  was  not  slow  to  put 
in  execution.  They  could  readily  demand  fifteen 
thousand  francs  to  get  rid  of  this  latest  rival,  which 
meant  seven  thousand  five  hundred  more  in  his 
pocket,  and  he  needed  it  to  adjust  a  matter  exactly 
similar  to  Thuillier's;  it  had  been  suggested  to  him 
by  Claparon,  whom  disaster  seemed  to  render  stupid. 
There  was  a  house  on  Rue  Geoff roy-Marie  which 
was  to  be  sold  for  sixty  thousand  francs.  The 
Widow  Poiret  offered  him  ten  thousand,  the  wine 
merchant  a  similar  sum  and  notes  for  ten  thousand. 
These  thirty  thousand  francs,  with  what  he  was 
soon  to  have  and  six  thousand  he  already  had,  would 
permit  him  to  try  his  luck,  especially  as  the  twenty- 
five  thousand  francs  due  from  Theodose  seemed  cer- 
tain to  be  paid. 

"The  time  for  raising  our  bid  has  passed,"  said 
Theodose  to  himself,  as  he  was  on  his  way  to  ask 
Dutocq  to  send  for  Cerizet;  "suppose  I  should  try 
to  shake  off  my  bloodsucker?" 

"You  can't  arrange  this  affair  anywhere  except 
at  Cerizet's,  for  Claparon  is  there,"  said  Dutocq. 

So,  between  seven  and  eight  o'clock,  Theodose 
went  to  the  lair  of  the  poor  man's  banker,  whom 
Dutocq  had  advised  in  the  morning  of  the  intended 
visit  of  their  capitalist 

La  Peyrade  was  received  by  Cerizet  in  the  ghastly 
kitchen  where  sufferings  were  hashed,  and  the  mis- 
eries, of  which  we  have  caught  a  glimpse,  were 


228  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

cooked.  The  two  men  paced  to  and  fro,  for  all  the 
world  like  caged  beasts,  as  they  enacted  the  follow- 
ing scene: 

"Have  you  brought  the  fifteen  thousand  francs?" 

"No,  but  I  have  them  at  home." 

"Why  not  in  your  pocket?"  demanded  Cerizet, 
sourly. 

"You  shall  know,"  replied  the  advocate,  who  had 
decided  on  the  course  he  would  adopt,  on  his  way 
from  Rue  Saint-Dominique  to  the  Estrapade.  As 
he  twisted  and  turned  on  the  gridiron  on  which  his 
two  confederates  had  placed  him,  the  Provencal  saw 
a  bright  idea  sparkling  amid  the  glowing  coals. 
Peril  has  its  inspirations.  He  relied  upon  the  power 
of  perfect  frankness,  which  has  its  effect  upon  every 
man,  even  a  swindler.  One  almost  always  thinks 
well  of  an  adversary  who  strips  himself  to  the  waist 
in  a  duel. 

"Good,"  said  Cerizet,  "the  farce  is  beginning — " 

This  was  an  ominous  retort,  and  had  a  most 
horrible  sound,  being  uttered  entirely  through  the 
nose. 

"You  have  put  me  in  a  magnificent  position,  and 
I  shall  never  forget  it,  my  friend,"  continued  Theo- 
dose,  with  emotion. 

"Oh!  that's  your  game!"  said  Cerizet 

"Look  here:  you  don't  doubt  my  intentions?" 

"Indeed  I  do!—"  retorted  the  usurer. 

"No." 

"You  don't  mean  to  give  up  the  fifteen  thous- 
and.—" 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  229 

Theodose  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked 
Cerizet  squarely  in  the  eye;  that  worthy  was  duly 
impressed  by  these  two  movements  and  held  his 
peace. 

"Could  you  live  in  the  position  I  am  in,  knowing 
that  you  were  at  the  muzzle  of  a  loaded  cannon, 
without  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  it? — Listen  to  me. 
You  are  engaged  in  a  dangerous  business,  and  you 
would  be  very  glad  to  have  a  protector  you  can 
depend  upon  at  the  fountain-head  of  justice  in  Paris. 
— I  can,  if  I  follow  my  own  road,  be  deputy  king's 
attorney,  perhaps  avocat  general,  three  years  hence. 
To-day  I  offer  you  a  firm  friendship,  which  will  cer- 
tainly be  of  service  to  you,  were  it  only  to  regain 
an  honorable  position  hereafter.  Here  are  my  con- 
ditions— " 

"Conditions!"  cried  Cerizet. 

"In  ten  minutes  I  will  bring  you  twenty-five 
thousand  francs,  in  exchange  for  all  the  notes  you 
hold  against  me." 

"And  Dutocq?  and  Claparon?"  cried  Cerizet. 

"You  can  throw  them  over,"  whispered  Theodose 
in  his  friend's  ear. 

"That's  very  pretty"  said  Cerizet,  "and  you 
have  thought  up  this  sleight-of-hand  performance 
because  you  happen  to  be  in  command  of  fifteen 
thousand  francs  that  don't  belong  to  you!" 

"I  am  adding  ten  thousand  to  them. — But,  come, 
we  know  each  other — " 

"If  you  can  get  ten  thousand  francs  out  of  your 
bourgeois  friends,"  said  Cerizet,  quickly,  "you 


230  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

shall  ask  them  for  fifteen.  At  thirty  I'm  your 
man. — Frankness  for  frankness." 

"You  ask  what  is  impossible!"  cried  Theodose. 

"At  this  moment,  if  you  were  dealing  with  a 
Claparon,  your  fifteen  thousand  francs  would  be  lost, 
for  the  house  belongs  to  our  Thuillier. " 

"I'll  go  and  tell  him,"  replied  Cerizet,  making 
a  show  of  consulting  Claparon  by  going  upstairs  to 
the  room  whence  the  said  Claparon  had  departed, 
ensconced  in  a  cab,  ten  minutes  before  Theodose 
appeared. 

The  two  adversaries  had  spoken,  of  course,  in 
such  a  way  as  not  to  be  overheard,  and,  as  soon  as 
Theodose  raised  his  voice,  Cerizet  by  a  gesture 
gave  him  to  understand  that  Claparon  might  be  lis- 
tening to  them.  The  five  minutes,  during  which 
Theodose  heard  what  sounded  like  the  murmur  of 
two  voices  over  his  head,  were  a  period  of  torture 
to  him,  for  he  was  playing  with  his  whole  life  for 
the  stake.  Cerizet  came  down  at  last  and  went  to 
his  accomplice  with  a  smile  upon  his  lips,  his  eyes 
gleaming  with  infernal  malice,  trembling  with  joy, 
a  perfect  Lucifer  in  good-humor. 

"I  know  nothing  about  such  things  myself,"  he 
said,  with  a  shrug,  "but  Claparon  knows  all  about 
it;  he  has  worked  for  high-grade  bankers,  and  he 
began  to  laugh.  'I  suspected  as  much!'  said  he. 
You  will  have  to  bring  me  to-morrow  the  twenty-five 
thousand  you  just  offered  me,  and  you'll  need  as 
much  more  to  take  up  your  notes,  my  boy." 

"Why  so? — "  demanded  Theodose,  feeling  as  if 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  231 

some  internal  current  of  the  electric  fluid  had 
melted  his  spinal  column. 

"The  house  is  ours!" 

"How  so?" 

"Claparon  has  put  in  a  bid  in  the  name  of  a  con- 
tractor, the  first  creditor  who  sued  him,  a  little  toad 
named  Sauvaignou;  Desroches,  the  attorney,  has 
charge  of  the  case,  and  you'll  receive  notice  in 
the  morning. — It's  a  matter  of  consequence  enough 
to  put  Claparon,  Dutocq,  and  myself  on  the  look- 
out for  funds. — What  would  become  of  me  without 
Claparon?  So  I've  forgiven  him, — I  forgive  him, 
and,  although  perhaps  you  won't  believe  me,  my 
dear  friend,  I  kissed  him!  Change  your  condi- 
tions!" 

This  last  phrase  was  terrible  to  hear,  especially 
when  emphasized  by  Cerizet's  face,  as  he  gave 
himself  the  pleasure  of  acting  a  scene  from  the 
Legataire,  in  the  midst  of  his  keen  study  of  the 
Provencal's  character. 

"Oh!  Cerizet!"  cried  Theodose;  "and  I  meant 
to  do  so  well  by  you!" 

"You  see,  my  dear  boy,"  replied  Cerizet,  "be- 
tween ourselves,  a  fellow  must  have  some  of  this ! — " 

And  he  struck  himself  a  blow  over  the  heart 

"You  haven't  any.  As  soon  as  you  think  you've 
got  a  twist  on  us  you  try  to  flatten  us  out — I  res- 
cued you  from  the  vermin  and  the  horrors  of  hunger ! 
You  were  dying  like  an  idiot — We  put  you  in  the 
way  to  make  a  fortune,  we  threw  the  finest  kind  of 
a  social  skin  over  your  shoulders,  and  set  you  down 


232  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

where  there  was  something  to  be  got — and  there 
you  are!  Now  I  know  you;  we  will  go  armed." 

"This  is  war!"  exclaimed  Theodose. 

"You  fired  first  on  me,"  said  Cerizet 

"But  if  you  crush  me,  adieu  to  your  hopes!  and  if 
you  don't  crush  me  you  have  me  for  your  enemy!" 

"That's  just  what  I  was  saying  yesterday  to  Du- 
tocq, "  replied  Cerizet,  coldly;  "but  what  would  you 
have?  we  will  choose  between  the  two — we'll  act 
according  to  circumstances. — I'm  a  good  fellow,"  he 
continued  after  a  pause;  "bring  me  your  twenty- 
five  thousand  francs  to-morrow  at  nine  o'clock,  and 
Thuillier  may  keep  the  house. — We'll  continue  to 
work  for  you  at  both  ends,  and  you  shall  pay  us. — 
After  what's  happened,  my  boy,  isn't  that  fair?" 

And  Cerizet  brought  his  hand  down  on  Theodose's 
shoulder  with  a  cynicism  more  dishonoring  than 
ever  branding-iron  was  in  the  executioner's  hands. 

"Well,  give  me  till  noon,"  replied  the  Provencal; 
"for  there's  much  pulling  and  tugging  to  be  done, 
as  you  would  say." 

"I'll  try  to  persuade  Claparon;  he's  in  a  great 
hurry,  is  that  fellow!" 

"Well,  until  to-morrow,"  said  Theodose,  with  the 
air  of  a  man  whose  mind  is  made  up. 

"Good-night,  my  friend,"  said  Cerizet  with  a 
nasal  twang  that  disgraced  the  most  beautiful  word 
in  the  language. — "There  goes  a  fellow  who  has 
got  what  he  deserves;  he's  a  sucker!"  he  said  to 
himself  as  he  watched  Theodose  walking  along  the 
street  like  a  drunken  man. 


When  Theodose  was  once  more  in  Rue  des  Postes 
he  walked  swiftly  toward  Madame  Colleville's  house, 
intensely  excited  and  talking  to  himself  aloud. 
The  fire  of  his  aroused  passions,  that  sort  of  internal 
conflagration  with  which  many  Parisians  are  famil- 
iar, for  such  horrible  situations  as  his  are  common 
enough  in  Paris,  excited  him  to  frenzy,  and  to  a 
pitch  of  eloquence  which  a  single  expression  will 
illustrate.  At  the  corner  of  Saint- Jacques  du  Haut- 
Pas,  in  the  little  Rue  des  Deux-Eglises,  he  cried: 

"I  will  kill  him!" 

"There's  a  fellow  who  doesn't  seem  contented!" 
said  a  workman,  whose  pleasantry  soothed  the 
white-hot  fury  from  which  Theodose  was  suffering. 

As  he  left  Cerizet  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  would 
make  a  confidante  of  Flavie  and  tell  her  everything. 
It  is  a  characteristic  of  the  Southern  nature  to  be 
strong  until  assailed  by  certain  passions,  when  every- 
thing falls  to  pieces.  He  entered.  Flavie  was 
alone  in  her  room;  she  caught  sight  of  Theodose  and 
thought  she  was  either  ravished  or  dead. 

"What's  the  matter?"  she  cried. 

"The  matter  is — "  he  said.  "Do  you  ove  me, 
Flavie?" 

"Oh!  can  you  doubt  it?" 

"Do  you  love  me  absolutely — even  criminally?" 

"Has  he  killed  someone?"  she  said  to  herself. 
(233) 


234  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

She  answered  with  a  nod. 

Theodose,  overjoyed  to  seize  this  willow  branch, 
went  from  his  chair  to  Flavie's  couch,  and  there, 
floods  of  tears  flowed  from  his  eyes  amid  sobs  that 
would  have  made  a  hardened  old  judge  weep. 

"I  am  at  home  to  nobody!"  said  Flavie  to  her 
maid. 

She  closed  the  doors  and  returned  to  Theodose, 
moved  as  deeply  as  any  mother  for  her  suffering 
child.  She  found  the  child  of  Provence  stretched 
out  on  the  couch,  his  head  thrown  back,  and  weeping 
bitterly.  He  had  taken  her  handkerchief,  and  when 
Flavie  tried  to  take  it  from  him  it  was  laden  with 
tears. 

"But  what  is  it?  what's  the  matter?"  she  asked. 

Nature,  more  acute  than  art,  served  Theodose's 
purpose  admirably;  he  was  no  longer  playing  a 
part,  he  was  himself;  and  the  tears,  the  nervous 
paroxysm,  were  his  sign-manual  to  the  comedy  he 
had  recently  acted. 

"You're  nothing  but  a  child!"  said  she,  in  a  soft 
voice,  running  her  hand  through  Theodose's  hair  as 
his  tears  ceased  to  flow. 

"I  can  see  nobody  but  you  in  the  whole  world!" 
he  cried,  kissing  her  hands  in  a  sort  of  frenzy,  "and 
if  you  remain  true  to  me,  if  you  are  mine  as  the 
body  is  the  soul's,  as  the  soul  is  the  body's,"  he 
said,  recovering  his  self-possession  and  with  infinite 
charm  of  manner,  "why,  I  shall  have  courage!" 

He  rose  and  began  to  pace  the  floor. 

"Yes,  I  will  struggle,  1  will  recover  my  strength, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  235 

like  Antaeus,  by  embracing  my  mother !  and  I  will 
strangle  in  my  hands  the  serpents  that  are  twined 
about  me,  giving  me  serpents'  kisses,  leaving  their 
foul  slaver  on  my  cheeks,  and  trying  to  suck  my 
blood  and  honor!  Oh!  poverty! — Ah!  how  great 
are  they  who  can  remain  standing  under  its  weight 
and  hold  their  heads  erect! — I  should  have  allowed 
myself  to  die  of  hunger  on  my  wretched  pallet  three 
years  and  a  half  ago ! — The  coffin  is  a  soft  bed  com- 
pared with  the  life  I  am  leading! — For  eighteen 
months  I  have  been  feeding  on  bourgeois  I — and  just 
as  I  am  on  the  point  of  beginning  to  lead  an  upright, 
happy  life,  with  the  prospect  of  a  glorious  future; 
just  as  I  am  going  forward  to  take  a  seat  at  the 
social  board,  the  executioner  lays  his  hand  on  my 
shoulder — yes,  the  monster  taps  me  on  the  shoulder 
and  says:  'Pay  the  devil's  tithe,  or  die!' — And  I 
didn't  crush  them! — I  didn't  plunge  my  arm  down 
their  throats  to  their  very  bowels! — Ah!  but  I 
will  do  it!  Look,  Flavie,  are  my  eyes  dry? — Now, 
I  laugh,  I  realize  my  own  strength,  and  my  faculties 
are  returning.  Oh !  tell  me  that  you  love  me — tell 
me  again!  It  is  to  me  at  this  moment  like  the 
word:  'Pardon!'  to  the  man  condemned  to  death." 

"You  are  terrible,  my  dear!"  said  Flavie;  "oh! 
you  have  killed  me!" 

She  understood  nothing  of  it  all,  but  she  fell  on  the 
couch  like  a  dead  woman,  worn  out  by  the  excite- 
ment, and  thereupon  Theodose  knelt  by  her  side. 

"Forgive  me!  forgive  me!"  he  said. 

"But  what  is  the  matter?" 


236  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"They  are  seeking  to  ruin  me.  Oh!  promise  to 
give  me  Celeste,  and  you  will  see  what  a  lovely  life 
you  will  share  with  us! — If  you  hesitate — why,  it 
means  that  you  will  be  mine,  and  I  take  you! — " 

He  made  such  an  impulsive  movement,  that 
Flavie  sprang  to  her  feet  in  dismay  and  began  to 
walk  the  floor. 

"Oh !  my  angel !  here  at  your  feet  —What  a  mira- 
cle! Surely  God  is  on  my  side!  A  ray  of  light  has 
penetrated  my  brain.  I  have  a  sudden  inspiration ! 
— Oh!  I  thank  thee,  my  good  angel,  great  Theo- 
dosius! — thou  hast  saved  me!" 

Flavie  gazed  in  admiration  at  this  chameleon-like 
creature,  as  with  one  knee  on  the  floor,  his  hands 
folded  on  his  breast  and  his  eyes  gazing  upward, 
he  repeated  a  prayer  like  the  most  fervent  of  Catho- 
lics, and  crossed  himself.  It  was  as  fine  as  the 
communion  of  Saint- Jer6me. 

"Adieu!"  said  he,  with  a  melancholy  expression 
and  accent  which  would  have  seduced  a  saint 

"Oh!  leave  me  my  handkerchief,"  cried  Flavie. 

Theodose  rushed  downstairs  and  into  the  street 
like  a  madman,  and  hurried  away  to  Thuillier's; 
but  he  turned  his  head,  saw  Flavie  at  the  window, 
and  waved  his  hand  triumphantly. 

"What  a  man!"  she  said  to  herself. 

"My  good  friend,"  said  he  in  a  calm,  soft,  almost 
wheedling  voice,  to  Thuillier,  "we  are  in  the  hands 
of  infernal  swindlers;  but  I  propose  to  give  them  a 
little  lesson." 

"What's  the  trouble?"  said  Brigitte. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  237 

"Why,  they  want  twenty-five  thousand  francs, 
and  in  order  to  get  the  law  on  their  side,  the  notary 
or  his  accomplices  have  fabricated  a  bid  to  beat  ours ; 
take  five  thousand  francs  with  you,  Thuillier,  and 
come  with  me;  I'll  see  that  you  have  the  house.  I 
am  making  implacable  enemies!"  he  cried,  "and 
they'll  do  their  best  to  kill  me  morally.  But  if  you 
refuse  to  believe  their  infamous  slanders,  and  don't 
change  to  me,  that's  all  I  ask.  What  does  it  all 
amount  to  after  all  ?  If  I  succeed,  you'll  pay  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  thousand  for  the  house  instead 
of  a  hundred  and  twenty." 

"Sha'n't  we  have  it  all  to  do  again?"  asked  Bri- 
gitte  uneasily,  her  eyes  dilating  under  the  pressure 
of  a  horrible  suspicion. 

"Registered  creditors  alone  have  the  right  to  raise 
our  bid,  and  as  this  is  the  only  one  who  has  availed 
himself  of  the  right,  we're  safe  enough.  The  debt 
is  only  two  thousand  francs,  but  in  such  cases  we 
have  to  pay  the  attorneys  well,  and  not  mind  an 
extra  thousand-franc  note  for  the  creditor." 

"Go  and  get  your  hat  and  gloves,  Thuillier," 
said  Brigitte,  "and  you'll  find  the  money  you  know 
where." 

"As  1  let  the  fifteen  thousand  francs  go  to  no  pur- 
pose, I  don't  care  to  have  any  more  money  pass 
through  my  hands.  Thuillier  shall  pay  it  himself, " 
said  Theodosewhen  he  was  left  alone  with  Brigitte. 
"You  made  twenty  thousand  francs  on  the  bargain 
I  made  for  you  with  Grindot,  who  supposed  he  was 
working  for  the  notary ;  and  you  have  a  piece  of 


238  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

property  that  will  be  worth  nearly  a  million  five 
years  from  now.  It's  a  corner  on  the  boule- 
vard!" 

Brigitte  was  ill  at  ease  as  she  listened,  exactly 
like  a  cat  who  feels  mice  under  the  floor.  She 
looked  Theodose  in  the  eye,  and  despite  the  good 
sense  of  his  observations  she  conceived  doubts. 

"What's  the  matter,  little  aunt?" 

"Oh!  I  shall  be  in  mortal  terror  until  we  are 
really  in  possession — " 

"You  would  gladly  give  twenty  thousand  francs, 
wouldn't  you,"  said  Theodose,  "to  feel  that  Thuil- 
lier  was  what  we  call  the  indefeasible  proprietor  ? 
Well,  remember  that  I  have  won  that  amount  twice 
over  for  you." 

"Where  are  we  going?"  asked  Thuillier. 

"To  Master  Godeschal !  we  must  retain  him  to 
act  for  us — . " 

"Why,  we  refused  him  Celeste's  hand!"  cried  the 
old  maid. 

"That's  the  very  reason  I'm  going  to  him, "  replied 
Theodose;  "I  have  studied  him,  he's  an  honorable 
man  and  will  be  glad  to  do  you  a  service." 

Godeschal,  Derville's  successor,  had  been  chief 
clerk  to  Desroches  for  more  than  ten  years.  Theo- 
dose, who  was  aware  of  that  circumstance,  heard 
this  name  whispered  in  his  ear  by  an  inward  voice 
in  the  midst  of  his  despair,  and  he  thought  he  could 
see  a  possibility  of  depriving  Claparon  of  the  weapon 
Cerizet  was  brandishing  at  him.  But,  first  of  all, 
it  was  essential  to  make  his  way  into  Desroches' 


THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS  239 

office,  and  get  some  light  as  to  the  position  of  his 
adversaries.  Godeschal  alone,  by  reason  of  the 
intimacy  subsisting  between  clerk  and  employer, 
could  guide  him  thither. 

The  attorneys  of  Paris,  when  they  are  connected 
as  Godeschal  and  Desroches  were,  live  upon  really 
fraternal  terms  among  themselves,  and  the  effect  is 
apparent  in  the  facility  with  which  matters  suscep- 
tible of  amicable  adjustment  are  adjusted.  They 
obtain  from  one  another  such  reciprocal  concessions 
as  are  obtainable,  by  applying  the  proverb:  "Pass 
me  the  rhubarb,  and  I'll  pass  you  the  senna,"  which 
is  put  in  practice  in  all  the  professions,  among 
ministers,  in  the  army,  among  judges  and  among 
business  men ; — everywhere,  in  short,  where  a  spirit 
of  hostility  has  not  erected  insuperable  barriers  be- 
tween the  parties. 

"I  get  a  very  good  fee  out  of  this  settlement,"  is 
an  argument  which  does  not  need  to  be  expressed  in 
words,  for  it  is  implied  in  the  tone,  in  the  look,  in 
the  gesture.  And,  as  attorneys  are  so  situated  that 
they  are  likely  to  find  themselves  in  the  same  boat 
again,  the  matter  is  arranged.  The  counterpoise 
to  this  good-fellowship  is  found  in  what  we  must  call 
the  conscience  of  the  profession.  Thus  society  must 
believe  the  physician,  who,  when  called  upon  to  act 
in  a  medico-legal  capacity,  says:  "This  body  con- 
tains arsenic;"  no  selfish  consideration  can  destroy 
the  self-esteem  of  the  actor,  the  probity  of  the  law- 
maker, the  independence  of  the  public  minister. 
The  attorney  says  good-naturedly:  "You  never  can 


240  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

obtain  that,  my  client's  a  madman;"  and  the  other 
replies:  "Well,  we  shall  see. — " 

Now,  La  Peyrade,  a  very  shrewd  young  man,  had 
worn  his  gown  at  the  Palais  enough  to  know  to  how 
great  an  extent  the  customs  of  the  profession  would 
serve  his  purposes. 

"Stay  in  the  cab,"  he  said  to  Thuillier  when  the 
carriage  stopped  on  Rue  Vivienne,  where  Godeschal 
had  become  an  employer  of  clerks  on  the  scene  of 
his  first  labors  as  clerk ;  "you  will  not  appear  un- 
less he  undertakes  the  case." 

It  was  eleven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  La 
Peyrade  had  not  miscalculated  in  hoping  to  find  an 
attorney  of  recent  creation  in  his  office  at  that  hour. 

"To  what  am  I  indebted  for  the  advocate's 
visit?"  said  Godeschal,  as  he  walked  forward  to 
meet  La  Peyrade. 

Strangers,  provincials,  society  folk  are  perhaps 
not  aware  that  advocates  are  to  attorneys  what  gen- 
erals are  to  marshals;  there  is  a  line  of  demarca- 
tion strictly  adhered  to  between  the  order  of 
advocates  and  the  society  of  attorneys.  However 
venerable  an  attorney  may  be,  however  great  in 
his  profession,  he  must  call  upon  the  advocate.  The 
attorney  is  the  administrative  officer  who  lays  out 
the  plan  of  campaign,  collects  supplies,  and  puts 
everything  in  train;  the  advocate  fights  the  battle. 
No  one  knows  why  the  law  gives  the  client  two  men 
for  one  any  more  than  we  know  why  the  author 
must  have  a  printer  and  a  publisher.  The  order  of 
advocates  forbids  its  members  to  do  any  act  properly 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  241 

within  the  attorney's  province.  It  very  rarely 
happens  that  a  great  advocate  steps  inside  an  office; 
they  are  consulted  at  the  Palais;  but,  in  the  world, 
the  barrier  ceases  to  exist,  and  some  advocates, 
especially  those  in  La  Peyrade's  position,  occasion- 
ally condescend  to  call  upon  an  attorney;  but  such 
cases  are  rare  and  are  almost  always  justified  by  the 
urgency  of  the  matter  in  hand. 

"Mon  Dieu,"  said  La  Peyrade,  "it's  quite  a 
serious  matter,  and  there's  a  question  of  etiquette 
involved  which  we  must  decide  between  us.  Thuil- 
lier  is  at  the  door  in  a  cab,  and  I  have  come  to  you, 
not  as  an  advocate,  but  as  Thuillier's  friend.  You, 
and  you  alone,  are  in  a  position  to  do  him  a  very 
great  service,  and  I  told  him  that  you  are  too 
high-souled  a  man,  for  you  are  a  worthy  successor 
of  the  great  Derville,  not  to  put  all  your  talents  at 
his  service.  This  is  the  case." 

Having  explained,  entirely  to  his  own  advantage, 
the  trickery  which  it  was  necessary  to  meet  with 
legal  skill,  for  lying  clients  are  more  common  with 
attorneys  than  truthful  ones,  the  advocate  sketched 
his  plan  of  campaign. 

"My  dear  sir,  you  must  call  upon  Desroches  this 
evening,  disclose  this  plot  to  him,  and  get  him  to 
promise  to  send  for  his  client,  this  Sauvaignou,  to- 
morrow morning;  between  us  three  we  will  put  him 
in  the  confessional,  and  if  he  wants  a  thousand- 
franc  note  over  and  above  his  claim,  we'll  let  him 
have  it,  to  say  nothing  of  five  hundred  francs  for 
yourself  and  as  much  for  Desroches,  if  Thuillier  has 

16 


242  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Sauvaignou's  release  at  ten  o'clock  to-morrow. — 
What  does  this  Sauvaignou  want?  His  money  of 
course!  A  man  of  his  stamp  isn't  likely  to  resist  a 
bait  of  a  thousand  francs,  even  if  he  is  but  the  tool 
of  some  greedy  fellow  hiding  behind  him.  The  dis- 
cussion between  him  and  those  who  are  working 
him  is  of  little  consequence  to  us. — Come,  help  the 
Thuillier  family  out  of  this — " 

"1  will  go  to  Desroches  instantly, "  said  Godeschal. 

"Not  until  Thu-illier  has  signed  a  power  of  attor- 
ney and  handed  you  five  thousand  francs.  You 
must  have  the  money  on  the  table  in  such  cases." 

After  a  further  interview,  at  which  Thuillier  was 
present,  La  Peyrade  put  him  and  Godeschal  in  a 
cab,  and  they  drove  to  Desroches'  office  on  Rue 
Bethisy,  where  they  dropped  Godeschal,  La  Peyrade 
saying  that  they  might  as  well  return  to  Rue  Saint- 
Dominique-d'Enfer  by  that  route:  and  on  the  steps 
at  Desroches'  door,  he  made  an  appointment  for  the 
next  morning  at  seven  o'clock. 

La  Peyrade's  fortune  and  his  future  depended  on 
the  result  of  that  conference.  So  we  must  not  be 
surprised  to  learn  that  he  ignored  the  customs  of 
his  order  so  far  as  to  go  to  Desroches'  office,  in  order 
to  study  Sauvaignou,  to  take  a  hand  in  the  fight, 
notwithstanding  the  risk  he  ran  in  an  encounter 
with  the  most  redoubtable  of  Paris  attorneys. 

As  he  entered  and  exchanged  salutations,  he  kept 
his  eye  on  Sauvaignou.  He  was,  as  his  name 
seemed  to  imply,  a  Marseillais,  a  contractor  for  labor, 
occupying  a  position,  as  his  title  of  marchandeur 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  243 

— taskmaster — indicated,  between  workmen  and 
master-builders  to  make  tenders  for  the  labor  on 
contracts  undertaken  by  the  latter.  The  contractor's 
profit  consists  of  the  difference  between  the  price 
he  pays  the  marchandeur  and  what  he  receives  from 
the  owner,  excluding  materials,  as  only  the  labor  is 
taken  into  account. 

The  master-builder  having  failed,  Sauvaignou  had 
procured  a  judgment  from  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce 
giving  him  a  lien  on  the  property,  and  had  been 
duly  registered  as  a  creditor  entitled  to  overbid. 
This  little  affair  had  put  an  end  to  the  panic. 

Sauvaignou,  a  short,  thickset  man,  dressed  in  a 
gray  woolen  blouse,  with  a  workman's  cap  on  his 
head,  was  sitting  in  an  arm-chair.  Three  one  thous- 
and franc  notes  lying  in  front  of  him  on  Desroches' 
desk,  told  La  Peyrade  plainly  enough  that  the  skir- 
mish had  taken  place  and  the  attorneys  had  been 
beaten.  Godeschal's  eyes  spoke  volumes,  and  the 
glance  that  Desroches  shot  at  the  poor  man's  lawyer 
was  like  the  blow  of  a  pickaxe  in  a  trench.  His 
faculties  stimulated  by  danger,  the  Provencal  was 
superb ;  he  placed  his  hand  on  the  notes  and  folded 
them  to  put  them  in  his  pocket. 

"Thuillier  withdraws  his  offer,"  he  said  to  Des- 
roches. 

"Very  good;  then  we're  all  agreed,"  replied  the 
terrible  attorney. 

"Yes;  your  client  must  bring  us  fifty  thousand 
francs  that  we've  laid  out  on  the  property  accord- 
ing to  the  contract  between  Thuillier  and  Grindot 


244  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

I  didn't  tell  you  that  yesterday,"  he  said,  turning 
to  Godeschal. 

"Do  you  hear  that?"  said  Desroches  to  Sauvaig- 
nou.  "That  means  a  lawsuit  that  I  won't  under- 
take without  security." 

"But,  Messieurs,"  said  the  taskmaster,  "1  can't 
do  anything  until  I've  seen  the  worthy  man  who 
handed  me  five  hundred  francs  on  account  for  sign- 
ing a  bit  of  a  power  of  attorney." 

"Are  you  from  Marseilles?"  said  La  Peyrade  to 
Sauvaignou  in  patois. 

"Oh!  if  he  attacks  him  in  patois,  he's  lost!" 
muttered  Desroches  to  Godeschal. 

"Yes,  Monsieur." 

"Well,  you  poor  devil,"  continued  Theodose, 
"they  mean  to  ruin  you. — Do  you  know  what  you 
must  do?  Pocket  these  three  thousand  francs,  and 
when  the  other  man  comes,  take  your  rule  and  give 
him  a  good  thrashing;  tell  him  he's  a  beggar,  that 
he  wanted  to  make  a  tool  of  you,  that  you  revoke 
your  power  of  attorney,  and  that  you'll  return 
his  money  in  the  week  that  has  three  Thursdays. 
Then,  with  the  thirty-five  hundred  francs  and  your 
savings,  go  to  Marseilles.  And,  if  anything  hap- 
pens to  you,  come  and  see  this  gentleman, — he'll 
know  where  to  find  me  and  I'll  help  you  out;  for, 
you  see,  I  am  not  only  a  good  Provencal,  but  I  am 
one  of  the  leading  advocates  of  Paris  and  the  friend 
of  the  poor — " 

When  the  fellow  found  a  compatriot  furnish- 
ing him  with  arguments  in  support  of  the  reasons 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  245 

he  had  for  betraying  the  usurer,  he  capitulated,  but 
demanded  thirty-five  hundred  francs. 

"A  good  thrashing,  said  Sauvaignou,"  when  his 
demand  was  acceded  to,  "is  well  worth  that,  for  it 
may  get  me  into  the  police  court" 

"No,  don't  hit  him  unless  he  says  nasty  things 
to  you,"  said  La  Peyrade;  "then  it  will  be  self- 
defence." 

When  Desroches  had  confirmed  La  Peyrade's  state- 
ment that  he  was  a  practising  advocate,  Sauvaignou 
signed  a  release  containing  a  receipt  for  the  principal 
of  his  claim  with  costs  and  interest;  the  release  was 
to  be  executed  in  duplicate  by  Thuillier  and  himself, 
attended  by  their  respective  attorneys,  so  that  the 
document  would  finally  extinguish  the  claim. 

"We  will  leave  the  fifteen  hundred  francs  for 
you,"  said  La  Peyrade  in  a  low  tone  to  Desroches 
and  Godeschal,  "but  only  on  condition  that  you  give 
me  the  release;  I'll  take  it  and  have  Thuillier  sign 
at  his  notary,  Cardot's;  the  poor  fellow  didn't  close 
his  eyes  last  night" 

"Very  well!"  said  Desroches. — "You  can  flatter 
yourself,"  he  added  to  Sauvaignou,  as  he  handed 
him  the  pen,  "on  having  made  fifteen  hundred  francs 
very  quickly." 

"They  are  surely  mine,  Monsieur  Attorney?" 
demanded  the  Marseillais,  already  ill  at  ease. 

"Oh!  yes,  quite  legitimately,"  replied  Desroches. 
"But  you  must  notify  your  man  this  morning  of  the 
revocation  of  his  power  of  attorney  under  date  of 
yesterday;  go  into  the  office,  here,  this  way — " 


246  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Desroches  told  his  chief  clerk  what  was  to  be 
done,  and  bade  one  of  the  students  see  to  it  that  a 
messenger  was  at  Cerizet's  before  ten  o'clock. 

"I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you,  Desroches,"  said 
La  Peyrade,  pressing  the  attorney's  hand;  "you 
think  of  everything,  and  I  won't  forget  this  service. " 

"Don't  leave  the  release  at  Cardot's  until  the 
afternoon." 

"Look  you,  my  countryman,"  cried  the  advocate 
to  Sauvaignou,  in  the  Provencal  dialect,  "take  your 
Margot  to  Belleville  for  the  day,  and  above  all  things 
don't  go  home — " 

"I  understand,"  said  Sauvaignou;  "your  hand; 
till  to-morrow!" 

"Right  you  are!"  exclaimed  La  Peyrade,  making 
use  of  a  familiar  Provencal  phrase. 

"There's  something  behind  this,"  said  Desroches 
to  Godeschal,  as  the  advocate  was  returning  from 
the  office  to  the  attorney's  private  room. 

"The  Thuilliers  have  a  magnificent  estate  for 
nothing,"  said  Godeschal,  "that's  all." 

"La  Peyrade  and  Cerizet  remind  me  of  two  divers 
fighting  under  water. — What  shall  I  say  to  Cerizet, 
who  employed  me  in  the  matter?"  Desroches 
asked  the  advocate,  after  making  that  shrewd  com- 
parison to  Godeschal  in  an  undertone. 

"That  your  hand  was  forced  by  Sauvaignou," 
replied  La  Peyrade. 

"And  have  you  no  fear?"  Desroches  demanded, 
point  blank. 

"Oh!  I  have  something  to  teach  him!" 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  247 

"I  shall  know  about  it  to-morrow;  there's  nobody 
so  talkative  as  a  man  who's  been  whipped,"  said 
Desroches  to  Godeschal. 

La  Peyrade  left  them  with  the  release  in  his 
pocket  At  eleven  o'clock  he  was  present  at  the 
opening  of  the  justice's  court,  calm  and  determined, 
and  as  Cerizet  came  in,  pale  with  rage,  he  whispered 
to  him: 

"My  dear  boy,  I'm  a  good  fellow,  too!  I  still 
have  twenty-five  thousand  francs  in  bank  notes  at 
your  disposal  in  exchange  for  all  my  notes  of  hand 
that  you  hold." 

Cerizet  glared  at  the  poor  man's  lawyer,  unable 
to  find  words  to  reply;  he  was  fairly  green  with  the 
bile  he  was  absorbing. 


* 

"I  have  an  indefeasible  title  to  the  property 
now!"  cried  Thuillier,  returning  from  Jacquinot's, 
Cardot's  son-in-law.  "No  human  power  can  steal 
my  house  from  me.  They  told  me  so!" 

The  bourgeois  have  much  more  faith  in  what  a 
notary  says  to  them  than  in  what  an  attorney  says. 
The  notary  is  of  more  importance  in  their  eyes 
than  any  other  ministerial  officer.  The  average 
citizen  of  Paris  never  calls  upon  his  attorney  with- 
out a  feeling  of  terror,  for  the  man's  belligerent 
manner  and  audacity  bewilder  him,  whereas  each 
time  that  he  climbs  the  stairs  to  his  notary's  office, 
he  does  so  with  renewed  pleasure,  for  he  admires  his 
sagacity  and  common  sense. 

"Cardot,  who  is  on  the  lookout  for  a  good  house, 
has  asked  me  for  one  of  the  apartments  on  the  sec- 
ond floor,"  he  continued;  "if  I  wish  he  will  intro- 
duce to  me  on  Sunday  a  tenant  who  proposes  to  take 
a  lease  of  the  whole  property  for  eighteen  years  at 
forty  thousand  francs,  he  to  pay  the  taxes.  What 
do  you  say  to  it,  Brigitte?" 

"We  must  wait,"  she  replied.  "Ah!  our  dear 
Theodose  gave  me  a  pretty  scare!" 

"Nonsense,  my  dear !   Why,  do  you  know,  Cardot 
asked  me  who  put  me  in  the  way  of  this  trade,  and 
told  me  1  ought  to  make  him  a  present  of  ten  thousand 
francs  at  least.     In  truth,  I  owe  him  everything!" 
(249) 


250  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Well,  he's  the  child  of  the  house,"  replied 
Brigitte. 

"Poor  fellow,  to  do  him  justice  he  never  asks  for 
anything." 

"Well,  my  good  friend,"  said  La  Peyrade,  when 
he  returned  from  the  magistrate's  at  three  o'clock, 
"now  you're  the  richest  of  the  rich!" 

"All  through  you,  my  dear  Theodose — " 

"And  have  you  come  back  to  life,  dear  aunt  ? — Ah ! 
you  weren't  half  as  frightened  as  I  was. — I  put  your 
interests  before  my  own.  I  tell  you,  I  didn't 
breathe  freely  until  eleven  o'clock  this  forenoon; 
and  now  I  am  sure  of  having  at  my  heels  two  mortal 
enemies  in  the  two  people  I  have  deceived  for  your 
sake.  As  I  was  coming  home  I  was  wondering  at 
your  influence  over  me  which  led  me  to  commit  this 
— I  might  almost  say  crime !  and  whether  the  joy  of 
being  one  of  your  family,  of  becoming  your  child,  will 
wipe  out  the  stain  I  can  see  upon  my  conscience." 

"Bah!  you  can  tell  it  to  your  confessor,"  said 
Thuillier,  the  skeptic. 

"Now,"  said  Theodose  to  Brigitte,  "you  can 
safely  pay  the  price  of  the  house,  eighty  thousand 
francs,  and  the  thirty  thousand  to  Grindot, — a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  in  all,  including  costs  and 
expenses, — and  this  last  twenty  thousand  makes  a 
hundred  and  forty.  If  you  let  the  whole  to  one  ten- 
ant, demand  the  last  year's  rent  in  advance,  and 
reserve  the  whole  first-floor  above  the  entresol  for 
my  wife  and  myself.  You  can  get  forty  thousand  a 
year  for  twelve  years  on  those  conditions.  If  you 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  251 

choose  to  leave  this  quarter  for  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Chamber,  there'll  be  plenty  of  room  for  you  with 
us  on  that  huge  first-floor,  which  has  stable  and  car- 
riage-house and  everything  necessary  for  a  life  of 
grandeur.  And  now,  Thuillier,  I  propose  to  get  the 
cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  for  you!" 

At  this  last  stroke,  Brigitte  cried: 

"Faith,  my  boy,  you  have  looked  after  our  busi- 
ness so  well,  that  I  leave  the  letting  of  the  house  to 
you." 

"Don't  abdicate,  my  dear  aunt,"  said  Theodose, 
"and  God  keep  me  from  taking  a  step  without  you! 
you  are  the  good  genius  of  the  family.  I  was  just 
thinking  of  the  day  when  Thuillier  enters  the 
Chamber.  You'll  be  in  receipt  of  forty  thousand 
francs  two  months  from  now.  And  that  won't  pre- 
vent Thuillier  from  getting  his  ten  thousand  at  the 
end  of  the  first  quarter." 

Having  tossed  this  hope  to  the  old  maid,  who  was 
in  high  spirits,  he  led  Thuillier  into  the  garden,  and 
said  to  him  without  beating  about  the  bush : 

"My  good  friend,  find  an  excuse  for  asking  your 
sister  for  ten  thousand  francs,  but  don't  let  her  sus- 
pect that  they  are  for  me ;  tell  her  that  amount  is 
necessary  for  use  in  the  department  to  secure  your 
appointment  as  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
and  that  you  know  how  to  distribute  it  and  to 
whom." 

"That  will  do,"  said  Thuillier;  "I'll  pay  it  back 
to  her  out  of  the  rent " 

"Have  the  money  to-night,  my  good  friend;  I  am 


252  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

going  out  now  to  see  about  your  Cross,  and  to- 
morrow we  shall  know  what  to  depend  on." 

"What  a  man  you  are!"  cried  Thuillier. 

"The  ministry  of  the  first  of  March  is  going  by 
the  board,  and  we  must  get  that  much  out  of  it," 
rejoined  Theodose,  with  a  knowing  look. 

He  hurried  to  Madame  Colleville's,  and  said  to 
her  as  he  went  in : 

"1  have  won;  we  shall  have  for  Celeste  a  piece 
of  real  estate  worth  a  million,  the  reversion  of  which 
will  be  assured  to  her  by  Thuillier  in  the  contract; 
but  we  must  keep  the  secret  or  all  the  peers  in 
France  will  be  after  your  daughter.  However,  that 
provision  will  be  made  only  in  my  favor.  Now  I 
want  you  to  dress  and  go  to  Madame  la  Comtesse  du 
Bruel;  she  can  get  the  Cross  for  Thuillier.  While 
you  are  putting  on  your  war  paint  I'll  go  and  pay 
my  court  to  Celeste  a  bit;  then  we  can  talk  in  the 
carriage." 

La  Peyrade  had  seen  Celeste  and  Felix  Phellion 
talking  together  in  the  salon.  Flavie  had  such  en- 
tire confidence  in  her  daughter  that  she  had  left  her 
with  the  young  professor.  After  his  great  triumph 
of  the  morning  Theodose  felt  that  it  was  time  for  him 
to  begin  to  pay  his  addresses  to  Celeste.  The  hour 
for  making  trouble  between  the  lovers  had  arrived, 
and  he  did  not  scruple  to  put  his  ear  to  the  door  of 
the  salon  before  going  in,  so  that  he  might  know 
what  letter  they  had  reached  in  the  alphabet  of 
love;  and  he  was  invited,  so  to  speak,  to  commit 
this  domestic  crime  by  sundry  bursts  of  loud  talking, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  253 

which  seemed  to  mean  that  they  were  quarreling. 
Love,  according  to  one  of  our  poets,  is  the  privilege 
two  people  accord  each  other  of  mutually  torment- 
ing each  other  about  nothing. 

Once  Felix  was  chosen  by  her  heart  to  be  her 
companion  for  life,  Celeste  desired  not  so  much  to 
study  him  as  to  be  one  with  him  in  that  communion 
of  hearts  which  is  the  beginning  of  all  affection,  and 
which,  in  young  people,  leads  instinctively  to  scru- 
tiny. The  quarrel  to  which  Theodose  was  prepar- 
ing to  listen  had  its  source  in  a  serious  disagreement 
that  had  taken  place  between  Celeste  and  the 
mathematician  several  days  before. 

The  young  girl,  who  was  the  moral  product  of 
the  years  when  Madame  Colleville  was  trying  to 
repent  of  her  sins,  was  sincerely  pious ;  her  piety 
was  deep-seated ;  she  belonged  to  the  flock  of  the 
truly  faithful,  and  in  her  character,  absolute  Catholi- 
cism, tempered  by  the  mysticism  which  is  so 
attractive  to  youthful  hearts,  was  a  sort  of  inborn 
poesy,  a  life  within  a  life.  Starting  from  that  point, 
young  women  grow  up  to  be  extremely  frivolous  or 
saints.  But,  during  that  lovely  period  of  their 
youth,  they  have  a  touch  of  absolutism  in  their 
hearts;  in  their  thoughts  they  have  always  before 
their  eyes  the  image  of  perfection,  and  everything 
must  be  celestial,  angelic  or  divine.  Outside  of 
their  ideal,  nothing  exists;  all  is  filth  and  corruption. 
This  idea  leads  many  girls  to  look  with  scorn  upon 
diamonds  of  the  first  water,  who,  as  women  grown, 
adore  paste. 


254  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Now,  Celeste  had  come  to  realize  that  Felix  was 
not  irreligious,  but  indifferent,  in  religious  matters. 
Like  the  majority  of  geometricians,  chemists,  mathe- 
maticians and  great  naturalists,  he  had  subjected 
religion  to  the  test  of  argument:  he  recognized 
therein  a  problem  as  insoluble  as  that  of  squaring 
the  circle.  A  deist  in  petto,  he  adhered  to  the  relig- 
ion of  the  majority  of  Frenchmen  without  attaching 
more  importance  to  it  than  does  the  new  law  hatched 
in  July.  There  must  be  a  God  in  heaven  just  as 
there  must  be  a  bust  of  the  king  on  a  pedestal  at 
the  mayor's  office.  Felix  Phellion,  a  worthy  son  of 
his  father,  had  never  spread  the  slightest  veil  over 
his  conscience;  with  the  absent-mindedness  of  a 
solver  of  problems  he  allowed  Celeste  to  read  what 
was  written  there;  and  the  maiden  confused  the 
religious  question  with  the  civil  question;  she 
professed  a  profound  horror  of  atheism,  and  her 
confessor  told  her  that  the  deist  is  the  cousin-german 
of  the  atheist. 

"Have  you  thought  about  doing  what  you  prom- 
ised, Felix  ?"  said  Celeste,  as  soon  as  Madame  Colle- 
ville  left  them  alone. 

"No,  my  dear  Celeste,"  replied  Felix. 

"Oh!  to  think  of  breaking  your  promise!"  she 
cried  gently. 

"It  would  be  a  profanation,"  said  Felix.  "I  love 
you  so  dearly  and  my  affection  is  so  weak  when 
opposed  to  your  wishes,  that  I  promised  something 
contrary  to  my  conscience.  Conscience,  Celeste, 
is  our  treasure,  our  strength,  our  mainstay.  How 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  255 

can  you  wish  me  to  go  to  church  and  kneel  at  the 
feet  of  a  priest  in  whom  I  can  see  only  a  man  ? — You 
would  have  despised  me  if  I  had  obeyed  you." 

"And  so  you  do  not  intend  to  go  to  church?"  said 
Celeste,  with  a  tearful  glance  at  the  man  she  loved. 
"If  I  were  your  wife  you  would  let  me  go  to  church 
alone  ? — You  don't  love  me  as  I  love  you ! — for  even 
now  I  have  in  my  heart  a  feeling  for  an  atheist  con- 
trary to  what  God  would  have  me  entertain." 

"An  atheist!"  cried  Felix.  "Oh!  no.  Listen 
to  me,  Celeste. — There  certainly  is  a  God ;  I  believe 
in  Him,  but  I  have  higher  ideas  concerning  Him  than 
your  priests  have;  I  don't  pull  Him  down  to  my 
level,  but  I  try  to  raise  myself  to  His.  I  listen  to 
the  voice  He  has  placed  within  me,  which  honest 
men  call  conscience,  and  I  try  not  to  obscure  the 
divine  rays  which  come  to  me.  Therefore  I  shall 
never  injure  anyone  and  I  shall  never  do  aught  con- 
trary to  the  teachings  of  the  world-wide  moral  law, 
— which  was  the  moral  law  of  Confucius,  of  Moses, 
of  Pythagoras,  of  Socrates,  as  well  as  of  Jesus 
Christ  I  shall  stand  erect  in  God's  presence;  my 
acts  will  be  my  prayers;  I  shall  never  lie,  my  word 
will  be  sacred,  and  I  shall  never  do  anything  base 
or  mean.  Such  are  the  precepts  I  learned  from  my 
virtuous  father,  and  I  wish  to  bequeath  them  to  my 
children.  All  the  good  I  can  do  1  will  do,  though  I 
must  suffer  thereby.  What  more  can  you  ask  of  a 
man?" 

This  profession  of  faith  caused  Celeste  to  shake 
her  head  with  a  pained  expression. 


256  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Read  the  Imitations  of  Jesus  Christ  carefully," 
said  she. — "Try  to  become  a  convert  to  the  Catho- 
lic, Apostolic,  Roman  Church,  and  you  will  see  how 
absurd  your  words  are.  Listen,  Felix;  marriage  is 
not,  in  the  eye  of  the  Church,  a  matter  of  a  day,  or 
entered  into  for  the  mere  gratification  of  our  desires; 
it  is  for  eternity. — What!  we  are  to  be  together 
night  and  day,  we  are  to  be  one  flesh,  one  voice, 
and  yet  we  shall  have  in  our  hearts  two  languages, 
two  religions,  a  perpetual  cause  of  discord!  You 
would  condemn  me  to  shed  tears  for  the  state  of 
your  soul,  and  to  hide  them  from  you;  could  I  appeal 
to  God,  when  1  saw  His  laws  constantly  invoked 
against  you?  Your  deistic  blood  and  your  convic- 
tions might  be  inherited  by  my  children! — Oh!  my 
God!  what  wretchedness  to  undergo  for  a  husband! 
No,  such  thoughts  are  intolerable. — O  Felix!  be  of 
my  faith,  for  I  cannot  be  of  yours !  Do  not  place  a 
gulf  between  us.  If  you  loved  me,  you  would  have 
read  the  Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ  before  this." 

The  Phel lions,  true  offspring  of  the  Constitution- 
net,  were  not  fond  of  the  priestly  mind.  Felix  was 
imprudent  enough  to  reply  to  this  prayer  from  the 
depths  of  a  loving  heart: 

"You  are  simply  repeating  a  lesson  you  have 
learned  from  your  confessor,  Celeste,  and  nothing  is 
so  fatal  to  happiness,  believe  me,  as  the  interference 
of  priests  in  family  affairs." 

"Oh!"  cried  Celeste,  indignantly,  for  love  alone 
had  inspired  her  words,  "you  do  not  love  me! — The 
voice  of  my  heart  does  not  go  to  yours!  You  didn't 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  257 

understand  me,  for  you  didn't  listen  to  me,  and  I 
forgive  you,  for  you  know  not  what  you  say." 

She  enveloped  herself  in  haughty  silence,  and 
Felix  went  and  drummed  on  the  window  with  his 
fingers:  familiar  music  to  those  who  are  absorbed  by 
bitter  thoughts.  Felix,  in  truth,  proceeded  to  pro- 
pound to  himself  these  nice  and  curious  questions 
suggested  by  the  Phellion  conscience: 

"Celeste  is  a  wealthy  heiress,  and  if  I  yield  to 
her  ideas,  disregarding  the  voice  of  natural  religion, 
I  should  be  influenced  by  the  prospect  of  an  advan- 
tageous marriage :  an  infamous  deed.  As  father  of 
a  family  I  could  not  allow  priests  to  have  the  least 
influence  in  my  house;  if  I  yield  to-day,  I  am  guilty 
of  a  weakness  which  will  be  followed  by  many 
others  equally  disastrous  to  a  father's  and  husband's 
authority.  All  this  is  unbefitting  a  philosopher." 

He  returned  to  his  beloved. 

"Celeste,  I  implore  you  on  my  knees,  let  us  not 
mingle  what  the  law  in  its  wisdom  has  separated. 
We  live  for  two  worlds,  society  and  heaven.  Let 
every  man  seek  salvation  in  his  own  way;  but,  as 
far  as  society  is  concerned,  do  we  not  obey  God  when 
we  observe  its  laws?  Christ  "said:  'Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's.'  Caesar  is  the 
political  world.  Let  us  forget  this  trifling  dispute !" 

"A  trifling  dispute!"  cried  the  young  enthusiast. 
"I  wish  you  to  have  all  my  heart  as  I  wish  to 
have  all  yours,  and  you  divide  it  in  two! — Is  not 
that  misfortune?  You  forget  that  marriage  is  a  sac- 
rament." 
17 


258  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Your  black  gowns  have  turned  your  head!"  ex- 
claimed the  mathematician,  testily. 

"Monsieur  Phellion,  you  have  said  enough  upon 
that  subject, "  interposed  Celeste,  sharply. 

At  this  juncture  Theodose  deemed  it  expedient 
to  make  his  appearance  on  the  scene,  and  found 
Celeste  very  pale  and  the  young  professor  as 
anxious  as  any  lover  who  has  just  angered  his 
mistress. 

"I  heard  the  word  enough! — That  meant  that 
there  was  too  much,  I  suppose?"  he  said,  looking 
inquiringly  from  Celeste  to  Felix. 

"We  were  talking  of  religion,"  Felix  replied, 
"and  I  was  saying  to  Mademoiselle  what  a  wretched 
thing  outside  religious  influence  is  in  a  family." 

"That's  not  the  question,  Monsieur,"  said  Ce- 
leste, sharply,  "but  whether  a  husband  and  wife 
can  have  but  one  heart  when  one  is  an  atheist  and 
the  other  a  Catholic." 

"Can  it  be  that  there  are  such  things  as  athe- 
ists?— "  cried  Theodose,  feigning  profound  amaze- 
ment "Can  a  Catholic  marry  a  Protestant?  Why, 
there  is  no  possible  salvation  for  husband  and  wife 
except  in  perfect  accord  in  religious  matters! — I, — 
to  be  sure,  I  am  from  the  Comtat,  and  belong  to  a 
family  that  numbers  a  pope  among  its  ancestors,  for 
our  crest  is  a  silver  key  gules,  and  we  have  for  sup- 
porters a  monk  holding  up  a  church  and  a  pilgrim 
with  a  golden  staff,  with  the  device:  /  open  and  I 
close— \  am  absolutely  ferocious  on  the  subject  But 
to-day,  thanks  to  the  modern  system  of  education. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  259 

it  doesn't  seem  extraordinary  to  agitate  such  ques- 
tions!— Why,  I  have  said  that  I  wouldn't  marry 
a  Protestant,  no  matter  how  many  millions  she 
might  have, — not  even  if  I  loved  her  to  distraction! 
Faith  isn't  a  matter  to  be  discussed.  Una  fides, 
units  Dominus,  is  my  political  motto." 

"You  hear!"  cried  Celeste,  with  a  triumphant 
glance  at  Felix. 

"I  am  no  devotee,"  continued  La  Peyrade;  "I  go 
to  mass  at  six  in  the  morning,  when  no  one  sees 
me;  I  fast  on  Fridays;  1  am,  in  short,  a  son  of  the 
Church,  and  I  would  not  enter  upon  any  serious  un- 
dertaking without  first  offering  up  a  prayer,  accord- 
ing to  the  old  custom  of  our  ancestors.  No  one 
notices  my  religion. — In  the  Revolution  of  1789 
something  happened  in  my  family  which  bound  us 
all  more  closely  than  ever  to  our  Holy  Mother  Church. 
A  poor  girl  belonging  to  the  elder  branch  of  the  La 
Peyrades,  who  own  the  little  estate  of  La  Peyrade, 
— for  we  are  Peyrades  des  Canquoelles,  but  the  two 
branches  inherit  from  each  other, — well,  this  young 
woman  married,  six  years  before  the  Revolution, 
an  advocate  who  was,  as  the  fashion  was  among 
advocates  in  those  days,  a  Voltairean,  that  is  to  say, 
a  doubter,  a  deist  if  you  choose.  He  chimed  in  with 
the  Revolutionary  ideas  and  abounded  in  the  pretty 
conceits  you've  heard  about  the  worship  of  the 
Goddess  Reason  and  the  rest  He  came  into  our 
province  saturated  with  the  Convention,  a  perfect 
fanatic.  His  wife  was  very  beautiful  and  he  com- 
pelled her  to  play  the  r61e  of  Liberty;  the  poor 


260  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

creature  went  mad. — She  died  a  madwoman ! — Well, 
in  these  days,  we  can  see  a  repetition  of  1793." 

This  fable,  invented  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
made  so  deep  an  impression  upon  Celeste's  fresh, 
young  imagination,  that  she  rose,  bowed  to  the 
young  men  and  withdrew  to  her  own  room. 

"Ah!  Monsieur,  what  did  you  say  to  her?"  cried 
Felix,  struck  to  the  heart  by  the  cold  glance  Celeste 
darted  at  him  with  an  affectation  of  profound  indif- 
ference. "She  thinks  she  is  already  transformed 
into  the  Goddess  of  Reason." 

"What  was  the  trouble,  pray?"  Theodose  asked. 

"My  indifference  in  religious  matters." 

"The  great  curse  of  the  age,"  rejoined  Theodose, 
solemnly. 

"Here  I  am,"  said  Madame  Colleville,  as  she 
entered  the  room,  dressed  with  great  taste.  "But 
what's  happened  to  my  poor  daughter  ?  she's  cry- 
ing-" 

"She's  crying,  Madame!"  cried  Felix;  "tell  her 
that  I'll  begin  studying  the  Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ 
at  once." 

He  went  down  stairs  with  Theodose  and  Flavie, 
the  advocate  pressing  Flavie's  arm  to  imply  that  he 
would  explain  the  young  scholar's  dementia  when 
they  were  in  the  cab. 

An  hour  later,  Colleville,  Madame  Colleville, 
Celeste  and  Theodose  arrived  at  the  Thuilliers'  to 
dinner.  Theodose  and  Flavie  took  Thuillier  into 
the  garden,  and  Theodose  said  to  him : 

"My  good  friend,  you  shall  have  the  Cross  in  a 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  261 

week.  Our  dear  friend  here  will  tell  you  about  our 
call  on  Madame  la  Comtesse  du  Bruel — " 

He  abruptly  broke  off  and  left  Thuillier,  as  he  saw 
Mademoiselle  Thuillier  escorting  Desroches  into  the 
garden ;  he  went  to  meet  the  attorney  with  a  horri- 
ble presentiment  that  made  his  blood  run  cold. 

"My  dear  master,"  said  Desroches  in  his  ear,  "I 
come  to  see  if  you  can  get  hold  of  twenty-five  thous- 
and francs  and  twenty-six  hundred  and  eighty 
francs  sixty  centimes  costs." 

"You  are  Cerizet's  attorney?" — cried  the  advo- 
cate. 

"He  has  handed  the  papers  to  Louchard  and  you 
know  what  you  have  to  expect,  after  an  arrest  Is 
Cerizet  mistaken  in  thinking  that  you  have  twenty- 
five  thousand  francs  in  your  desk  ?  You  offered  them 
to  him  and  it's  quite  natural  for  him  not  to  let  you 
keep  them — " 

"I  thank  you  for  what  you  have  done,  my  dear 
master,"  said  Theodose ;  "I  anticipated  this  attack. " 

"Between  ourselves,"  replied  Desroches,  "you 
fooled  him  in  great  style.  The  rascal  won't  stop  at 
anything  to  revenge  himself,  for  if  you  choose  to 
throw  your  gown  to  the  dogs  and  go  to  prison,  he 
loses  everything — " 

"I  go  to  prison !"  cried  Theodose ;  "I'll  pay ! — But 
there  are  five  more  acceptances  for  five  thousand 
each ;  what  does  he  mean  to  do  with  them  ?" 

"Oh!  after  this  morning,  I  can't  tell  you  any- 
thing; but  my  client  is  a  shrewd,  mangy  dog,  and 
he  has  his  little  schemes — " 


262  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Tell  me,  Desroches,"  said  La  Peyrade,  putting 
his  hand  on  the  thin,  gaunt  attorney's  shoulder, 
"you  still  have  the  notes,  haven't  you?" 

"Do  you  mean  to  pay?" 

"Yes;  in  three  hours." 

"All  right ;  be  at  my  office  at  nine  o'clock ;  I'll  take 
your  money  and  hand  you  the  notes ;  but  at  half- 
past  nine  they'll  be  in  Louchard's  hands." 

"Very  well,  this  evening  at  nine." 

"At  nine,"  assented  Desroches,  whose  keen  glance 
embraced  the  whole  family  assembled  in  the  garden. 

Celeste,  red-eyed,  was  talking  with  her  god- 
mother, Colleville  and  Brigitte,  Flavie  and  Thuil- 
lier,  on  the  broad  steps  leading  up  from  the  garden 
to  the  hall. 

"You  can  well  afford  to  take  up  your  notes,"  said 
Desroches  to  Theodose,  as  he  escorted  him  to  the 
door. 

At  a  single  glance  Desroches  understood  the  ad- 
vocate's vast  projects. 

The  next  morning  at  daybreak  Theodose  called 
upon  the  costermongers'  banker  to  see  the  effect 
produced  upon  his  enemy  by  the  payment  of  his 
notes  punctually  at  the  time  appointed  on  the  pre- 
vious evening,  and  to  make  one  more  attempt  to  rid 
himself  of  the  gadfly. 

He  found  Cerizet  standing,  in  consultation  with  a 
woman,  and  received  from  him  an  imperative  com- 
mand to  remain  at  a  distance  and  not  interrupt  their 
interview.  The  advocate  was  therefore  reduced  to 
conjecture  as  to  what  the  woman's  business  could 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  263 

be,  for  its  importance  was  clearly  indicated  by  the 
usurer's  thoughtful  expression.  Theodose  had  a 
presentiment,  extremely  vague  to  be  sure,  that  the 
conference  would  have  some  effect  upon  Cerizet's 
plans,  for  he  saw  in  his  countenance  the  complete 
transformation  produced  by  hope. 

"But,  dear  Mother  Cardinal—" 

"Yes,  my  good  man — " 

"What  do  you  want?" 

"We  must  make  up  our  minds — " 

Such  beginning  or  ends  of  sentences  were  the  only 
rays  of  light  that  this  animated  conversation,  carried 
on  in  low  tones,  mouth  to  ear  and  ear  to  mouth,  cast 
upon  the  motionless  witness,  whose  attention  was 
concentrated  on  Madame  Cardinal. 

Madame  Cardinal  was  one  of  Cerizet's  first  cus- 
tomers, a  fishhawker.  Parisians  may  be  familiar 
with  this  class  of  creatures,  peculiar  to  their  soil, 
but  foreigners  do  not  suspect  their  existence,  and 
Mere  Cardinal,  as  she  was  technically  called,  was 
deserving  of  the  interest  she  aroused  in  the  advo- 
cate's mind.  One  meets  so  many  women  of  her 
stamp  in  the  streets  that  the  passer-by  pays  little 
more  heed  to  them  than  to  the  three  thousand  pic- 
tures of  an  exposition.  But,  in  this  digression,  La 
Cardinal  has  all  the  interest  of  a  masterpiece  hang- 
ing by  itself,  for  she  was  a  perfect  type  of  her 
species. 

She  stood  upon  muddy  wooden  clogs ;  but  her  feet 
were  carefully  enveloped  in  socks,  and  were  further 
protected  by  stout  milled  stockings.  Her  calico 


264  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

dress,  enriched  with  a  flounce  of  mud,  bore  the 
marks  of  the  strap  that  held  her  fishbasket,  diago- 
nally across  her  short  back.  Her  principal  garment 
was  a  shawl  of  the  variety  known  as  rabbit's  skin 
cashmere,  the  ends  of  which  were  tied  above  her 
tournure, — we  must  employ  the  word  current  in 
fashionable  society,  to  describe  the  effect  produced 
by  the  impression  of  the  strap  across  her  skirts, 
which  rose  in  the  shape  of  a  cabbage.  A  piece  of 
coarse  cotton,  worn  as  a  neckerchief,  left  bare  a  red 
neck,  seamed  like  the  basin  of  La  Villette  after 
people  have  been  skating  there.  Her  head-dress 
was  a  yellow  silk  handkerchief,  twisted  pictur- 
esquely. 

Short  and  stout  was  Mere  Cardinal,  and  of  a  rich 
coloring  that  suggested  a  glass  of  eau-de-vie  in  the 
morning.  She  had  been  beautiful.  The  Market 
reproached  her,  in  its  boldly  metaphorical  speech,  of 
having  more  than  once  turned  night  into  day.  Her 
voice,  in  order  to  meet  the  requirements  of  ordinary 
conversation,  was  obliged  to  compress  its  volume  as 
one  does  in  a  sick-room ;  but  then  it  issued  thick 
and  muffled  from  a  palate  accustomed  to  shout  the 
names  of  the  fish  she  had  for  sale  at  each  season  so 
that  she  could  be  heard  in  the  loftiest  attics.  Her 
nose  a  la  Roxelane,  her  well-shaped  mouth,  her  blue 
eyes,  all  that  had  once  contributed  to  make  her 
beautiful  were  swallowed  up  in  layers  of  healthy  fat 
which  told  of  a  life  passed  in  the  open  air.  Her 
stomach  and  bosom  were  noticeable  for  their 
Rubens-like  amplitude. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  265 

"Do  you  want  me  to  lie  on  straw?"  she  said  to 
Cerizet — "What  do  I  care  for  the  Toupilliers  ?  Ain't 
1  a  Toupillier? — Where  do  you  want  to  put  the 
Toupilliers?" 

This  fierce  outbreak  was  repressed  by  Cerizet 
with  a  prolonged  hush  !  of  the  sort  that  all  conspira- 
tors heed. 

"Well,  go  and  see  what  it  amounts  to  and  come 
back,"  said  Cerizet,  edging  her  toward  the  door, 
where  he  whispered  a  word  or  two  in  her  ear. 

"Well,  my  dear  friend,"  said  Theodose,  "you 
have  your  money?" 

"Yes,"  was  the  reply;  "we  have  measured  our 
claws,  and  they  are  of  equal  length  and  strength  and 
toughness. — What  next?" 

"Shall  I  tell  Dutocq  that  you  received  twenty-five 
thousand  francs  yesterday?" 

"Oh!  my  dear  friend,  not  a  word — if  you  love 
me!"  cried  Cerizet 

"Look  you,"  retorted  Theodose,  "I  must  know 
once  for  all  what  you  want  I  have  definitely  made 
up  my  mind  that  I  will  not  remain  twenty-four 
hours  more  on  the  gridiron  where  you  have  placed 
me.  It  is  a  matter  of  perfect  indifferenc  to  me  how 
much  you  gull  Dutocq;  but  I  propose  that  you  and  I 
shall  have  an  understanding.  Twenty-five  thousand 
francs  is  a  fortune  to  you,  for  you  must  have  made 
ten  thousand  in  your  business, — and  it's  enough  to 
make  you  an  honest  man.  Cerizet,  if  you  will  let 
me  alone,  if  you  won't  interfere  with  my  marrying 
Mademoiselle  Colleville,  I  shall  get  to  be  something 


266  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

like  king's  advocate  in  Paris;  you  couldn't  do  better 
than  make  sure  of  a  protector  in  that  direction." 

"Here  are  my  conditions,  and  they're  not  to  be 
discussed;  you  can  accept  them  or  not.  You  see 
that  I  have  the  Thuillier  house  as  principal  tenant 
on  an  eighteen  years'  lease,  and  I  will  hand  you  one 
of  the  other  five  notes  discharged.  You  won't  find 
me  in  your  way  any  more  and  you  can  arrange 
about  the  four  others  with  Dutocq.  You  will  have 
got  rid  of  me,  and  Dutocq  isn't  strong  enough  to 
fight  with  you — " 

"I  agree  if  you  will  pay  forty-eight  thousand 
francs  a  year  for  the  house,  the  last  year  in  advance, 
and  let  the  rent  begin  in  October  next" 

"All  right,  but  I'll  only  pay  forty-three  thous- 
and in  cash;  your  note  makes  up  the  forty-eight. 
I  have  seen  the  house  and  looked  it  over  and  it 
suits  me." 

"One  last  condition,"  said  Theodose:  "you  will 
assist  me  against  Dutocq?" 

"No,"  replied  Cerizet,  "you've  cooked  him  quite 
enough,  without  my  sticking  the  larding-pin  into 
him;  he'd  lose  all  his  juice.  We  must  be  reasona- 
ble. The  poor  devil  doesn't  know  how  he  is  to  pay 
the  last  fifteen  thousand  francs  on  the  price  of  his 
clerkship,  and  it's  enough  for  you  to  know  that  you 
can  take  up  your  notes  for  fifteen  thousand." 

"Well,  give  me  a  fortnight  to  get  your  lease  for 
you." 

"Not  longer  than  till  next  Monday !  On  Tuesday 
your  note  for  five  thousand  will  be  in  Louchard's 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  267 

hands,  unless  you  pay  it  or  Thuillier  agrees  to  give 
me  the  lease,  by  Monday." 

"Very  well,  Monday  it  is!"  said  Theodose.  "Are 
we  friends?" 

"We  shall  be  Monday,"  replied  Cerizet 

"All  right,  until  Monday;  will  you  pay  for  my 
dinner?"  said  Theodose,  laughingly. 

"Yes,  at  the  Rocker  de  Cancale  if  I  get  the  lease. 
Dutocq  will  be  there  and  we'll  have  some  sport 
It's  a  long  time  since  I  laughed." 

Theodose  and  Cerizet  exchanged  a  grasp  of  the 
hand,  and  the  words : 

"I'll  see  you  again  soon!" 


Cerizet  had  not  allowed  himself  to  be  so  promptly 
appeased  without  cause.  In  the  first  place,  as 
Desroches  said:  "Bile  doesn't  facilitate  business," 
and  the  usurer  was  too  sensible  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
remark  not  to  make  up  his  mind  in  cold  blood  to 
make  the  most  of  his  situation,  and  strangle,  the 
technical  word,  the  shrewd  young  Provencal. 

"You  have  your  revenge  to  take, "  said  Desroches, 
"and  you've  got  that  young  fellow.  Be  sure  and 
extract  his  quintessence." 

In  the  last  ten  years  Cerizet  had  seen  more  than 
one  man  enriched  by  carrying  on  the  trade  of  prin- 
cipal tenant.  The  principal  tenant  is  to  the  owner 
of  buildings  in  Paris  what  the  farmer  is  to  the  owner 
of  estates  in  the  country.  All  Paris  has  seen  one  of 
its  most  famous  tailors  building  a  most  magnificent 
structure  at  his  own  expense  on  the  celebrated  Fras- 
cati  property,  and  paying  fifty  thousand  a  year  rent 
therefor  as  principal  tenant,  the  building  to  belong 
to  the  owner  of  the  land  at  the  expiration  of  a  nine- 
teen-years'  lease.  Despite  the  expense  of  construc- 
tion, which  was  something  like  seven  hundred 
thousand  francs,  the  net  profits  of  the  lease  were 
very  handsome. 

Cerizet,  on  the  watch  for  business  opportunities, 
reckoned  up  the  chances  of  profit  offered  by  the  loca- 
tion of  the  building  stolen  by  Thuillier,  as  he  told 
(269) 


270  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

Desroches,  and  was  satisfied  that  he  could  sublet  it 
for  more  than  sixty  thousand  francs  at  the  end  of  six 
years.  It  had  four  shops,  two  in  each  front,  and 
occupied  a  corner  lot  on  the  boulevard. 

Cerizet  hoped  to  make  at  least  twelve  thousand  a 
year  for  twelve  years,  without  reckoning  the  possi- 
bilities, the  premiums  paid  at  each  renewal  of  a  lease 
by  the  tradesmen  who  had  established  a  good  busi- 
ness there,  to  whom  he  would  not  give  leases  for  a 
longer  term  than  six  years  at  first.  He  proposed  to 
sell  the  good  will  of  his  usury  office  to  the  Widow 
Poiret  and  Cadenet  for  twelve  thousand  francs,  and 
as  he  already  had  more  than  thirty  thousand  he  was 
possessed  of  the  means  of  paying  the  year's  rent  in 
advance  which  landlords  are  accustomed  to  demand, 
as  security,  from  principal  tenants.  Cerizet  there- 
fore had  passed  a  very  happy  night;  his  sleep  was 
one  long  dream  in  which  he  fancied  himself  in  a  fair 
way  to  adopt  an  honest  business,  and  to  become  a 
good  citizen  like  Thuillier  and  Minard  and  many 
others. 

He  abandoned  all  thought  of  the  house  in  process 
of  construction  on  Rue  Geoffroy-Marie.  But  he  had 
an  awakening  which  he  did  not  expect;  he  found 
Fortune  standing  beside  him  in  the  person  of  Mad- 
ame Cardinal,  and  pouring  forth  gifts  upon  him  in 
abundance  from  her  horn  of  plenty. 

He  had  always  treated  this  woman  with  consider- 
ation, and  had  promised  her,  for  a  year  or  more,  the 
necessary  funds  to  purchase  a  donkey  and  a  little 
cart,  so  that  she  might  carry  on  her  business  on  a 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  271 

large  scale,  and  go  from  Paris  into  the  suburbs. 
Madame  Cardinal  was  the  widow  of  one  of  the  pil- 
lars of  the  Market,  and  she  had  an  only  daughter, 
whose  beauty  was  much  vaunted  to  Cerizet  by  other 
gossips.  Olympe  Cardinal  was  about  thirteen  years 
old  when  Cerizet  began  to  loan  money  in  the  quar- 
ter, in  1837,  and  he  showed  the  greatest  attention 
to  La  Cardinal,  to  serve  his  own  base  ends;  he 
raised  her  out  of  the  depths  of  want,  hoping  to  make 
Olympe  his  mistress;  but,  in  1838,  the  girl  left  her 
mother,  and  was  doubtless  making  her  living,  to  use 
the  phrase  with  which  the  common  people  of  Paris 
describe  the  misuse  of  the  precious  gifts  of  nature 
and  youth. 

To  look  for  a  girl  in  Paris  is  like  looking  for  a 
sole  in  the  Seine;  one  can  simply  take  the  chance 
of  a  lucky  cast  of  the  net  This  lucky  cast  had  been 
made.  Mere  Cardinal,  who  had  entertained  one  of 
her  lady  friends  by  taking  her  to  the  Bobino  Theatre, 
had  recognized  her  daughter  in  the  "leading  lady" 
whom  the  "first"  comic  had  had  under  his  protection 
for  three  years.  The  mother  was  flattered  at  first 
to  see  the  heiress  in  a  lovely,  spangled  gown,  with 
her  hair  dressed  like  a  duchess's,  open-work  stock- 
ings and  satin  shoes,  and  to  hear  the  shouts  of  ap- 
plause that  greeted  her  when  she  appeared ;  but  she 
ended  by  shouting  to  her  from  her  seat: 

"You  shall  hear  from  me,  you  murderer  of  your 
mother! — I'll  find  out  if  dirty  strollers  have  any 
right  to  ruin  girls  of  sixteen!" 

She  undertook  to  watch  for  her  daughter  when  she 


2/2  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

left  the  theatre,  but  the  leading  lady  and  the  first 
comic  must  have  leaped  over  the  footlights  and  have 
gone  out  with  the  spectators,  instead  of  by  the  stage- 
door  where  the  Widow  Cardinal  and  Mere  Mahou- 
deau,  her  good  friend,  made  an  infernal  uproar 
which  two  municipal  guards  pacified.  Those  august 
functionaries,  in  obedience  to  whom  the  two 
women  lowered  the  pitch  of  their  voices,  called  the 
mother's  attention  to  the  fact  that  at  sixteen  her 
daughter  was  old  enough  to  go  on  the  stage,  and  that, 
instead  of  shrieking  at  the  door  for  the  manager,  she 
could  summon  him  before  the  justice  of  the  peace  or 
the  police  court,  as  she  chose. 

The  next  morning  Madame  Cardinal  was  intend- 
ing to  consult  Cerizet,  having  in  view  the  fact  that 
he  was  employed  by  the  justice  of  the  peace;  but 
before  she  had  started  for  his  den  on  Rue  des  Poules, 
she  was  struck  dumb  by  the  concierge  of  the  house 
where  old  Toupillier,  her  uncle,  lived;  he  had  not 
two  days  to  live,  being  in  the  last  stages  of  consump- 
tion, so  the  man  told  her. 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  me  to  do?"  the  widow 
inquired. 

"We  count  on  you,  dear  Madame  Cardinal;  you 
won't  forget  us  for  the  good  advice  we  give  you. 
Here's  the  way  it  is :  just  lately  your  poor  uncle, 
being  as  he  couldn't  move,  trusted  me  to  collect 
the  rents  of  his  house,  Rue  Notre-Dame  de  Naz- 
areth, and  the  back  money  on  a  certificate  he  has 
on  the  Treasury  for  eighteen  hundred  francs  a 
year." 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  273 

From  that  instant  the  Widow  Cardinal's  eyes, 
which  had  been  wandering  vaguely  around,  became 
fixed. 

"Yes,  my  dear,"  continued  Master  Perrache, 
the  little  lame  concierge;  "and,  seeing  that  you're 
the  only  one  that  ever  thought  of  him,  and  took  him 
fish  now  and  then,  you  may  find  he's  done  the  hand- 
some thing  by  you. — My  wife's  been  looking  out  for 
him  latterly  and  sitting  up  with  him;  she  mentioned 
you  to  him,  but  he  wouldn't  let  her  tell  you  he  was 
sick. — You  see  it's  high  time  for  you  to  show  your- 
self. Dame,  it's  near  two  months  since  he  did  any 
business." 

"Come,  my  old  leather-scratcher, "  said  Mere 
Cardinal  to  the  concierge,  a  shoemaker  by  trade, 
as  they  hurried  off  to  Rue  Honore-Chevalier, 
where  her  uncle  dwelt  in  a  filthy  attic,  "you'll  agree 
that  the  hair  might  have  grown  long  on  my  hand 
before  I'd  have  imagined  that! — What!  My  uncle 
Toupillier  rich! — Oh!  the  honest  pauper  of  Saint- 
Sulpice!" 

"Ah!"  rejoined  the  concierge,  "he  looked  out  for 
himself  all  right, — he  went  to  bed  every  night  with 
his  good  friend,  a  big  bottle  of  Roussillon.  My  wife 
has  tasted  it;  but  he  told  us  it  was  six-franc  wine. 
He  got  it  at  the  wine-shop  on  Rue  des  Canettes. " 

"Don't  blab  about  this,  my  boy, "  said  the  widow, 
as  she  parted  from  her  informant,  "I'll  look  after 
you, — if  there's  anything  in  it." 

This  Toupillier,  once  a  drum-major  in  the  Garde- 
Francaise,  had  entered  the  service  of  the  Church 

18 


274  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

two  years  before  1789,  becoming  verger  at  Saint- 
Sulpice.  The  Revolution  deprived  him  of  his  job, 
and  he  became  horribly  poor.  He  was  thereupon 
compelled  to  take  up  the  profession  of  a  model,  for  he 
enjoyed  a  fine  physique. 

When  the  religion  was  rehabilitated  he  resumed 
his  staff;  but  he  was  dismissed  in  1816,  as  much  on 
account  of  his  bad  moral  character  as  of  his  political 
opinions;  he  was  supposed  to  be  a  Bonapartist. 
However,  as  a  compensation,  he  was  allowed  to 
stand  at  the  door,  where  he  distributed  holy  water. 
Later,  a  scandalous  affair,  whereof  we  shall  have  a 
word  to  say  anon,  deprived  him  of  his  sprinkler ;  but 
he  found  still  another  method  of  attaching  himself 
to  the  sanctuary  and  obtained  leave  to  sit  at  the 
church  door  in  the  capacity  of  a  pauper.  At  this 
period,  rich  in  the  memories  of  the  seventy-two  years 
he  had  lived,  he  laid  claim  to  ninety-six,  and  began 
the  role  of  centenarian. 

In  all  Paris  it  was  impossible  to  find  such  a  beard 
and  such  hair  as  Toupillier's.  He  was  bent  almost 
double  as  he  walked,  holding  a  staff  in  one  trem- 
bling hand,  covered  with  lichen  like  that  that  grows 
upon  granite,  and  in  the  other  his  classic,  soiled  and 
patched  broad-brimmed  hat,  wherein  alms  fell  plen- 
tifully. His  legs,  encased  in  ragged  bandages,  ter- 
minated in  horribly  dilapidated  shoes  of  coarse 
matting,  within  which  he  filled,  however,  excellent 
horse-hair  soles.  He  smeared  his  face  with  various 
compounds  which  simulated  the  marks  left  by  severe 
maladies,  blotches  and  seams,  and  he  counterfeited 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  275 

the  senility  of  the  centenarian  to  admiration.  He 
had  been  one  hundred  years  old  since  1830,  and  he 
was  in  fact  eighty.  He  was  the  dean  of  the  church 
poor,  the  master  of  the  square,  and  all  those  who 
came  to  beg  beneath  the  arches  of  the  church,  out  of 
reach  of  the  police  agents,  and  under  the  protection 
of  the  verger,  the  beadle,  the  dispenser  of  holy  water 
and  the  parish,  paid  him  a  sort  of  tithe. 

When  an  heiress  or  a  bridegroom  or  a  godfather 
would  say,  as  they  left  the  church:  "Here's  some- 
thing for  all  of  you,  and  don't  annoy  anybody," 
Toupillier,  indicated  by  his  successor  in  the  ver- 
gership,  would  pocket  three-fourths  of  the  gratuities 
and  give  only  one-fourth  to  his  acolytes,  from  whom 
he  exacted  as  tribute  a  sou  a  day.  Money  and  wine 
were  his  two  great  passions ;  but  he  kept  the  second 
under  control  and  surrendered  unconditionally  to 
the  first,  without  neglecting  his  comfort.  He  drank 
at  night  after  dinner,  when  the  church  was  closed ; 
he  slept  for  twenty  years  in  the  arms  of  drunken- 
ness, his  last  mistress. 

In  the  morning,  at  dawn,  he  was  at  his  post  with 
all  his  properties.  From  that  time  until  dinner, 
which  he  took  at  Pere  Lathuile's,  made  famous  by 
Charlet,  he  gnawed  crusts  of  bread  for  nourishment 
and  he  gnawed  them  most  artistically  in  a  way  that 
brought  him  alms  galore.  The  verger  and  the  dis- 
penser of  holy  water,  with  whom  he  had  an  under- 
standing perhaps,  used  to  say  of  him : 

"He's  the  church  pauper;  he  knew  Languet  the 
cure,  who  built  Saint-Sulpice;  he  was  verger  twenty 


276  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

years  both  before  and  after  the  Revolution ;  he's  a 
hundred  years  old." 

This  little  biography,  familiar  to  good  churchmen, 
was  the  best  of  all  advertisements  and  in  all  Paris 
no  hat  was  passed  with  more  satisfactory  results. 
He  bought  his  house  in  1826  and  his  rentes  in  1830. 

Judging  from  the  value  of  the  two  properties,  his 
receipts  must  have  amounted  to  six  thousand  francs 
a  year  and  must  have  been  invested  in  some  usuri- 
ous business  like  Cerizet's,  for  the  house  cost  forty 
thousand  francs  and  the  rentes  forty-eight  thousand. 
His  niece,  who  was  thoroughly  hoodwinked  by  her 
uncle,  as  were  the  concierges,  the  petty  church  func- 
tionaries and  the  charitable  pious  folk,  believed  him 
to  be  in  greater  want  than  herself,  and  when  she 
had  any  fish  that  were  a  little  tainted  she  would 
carry  them  to  the  poor  man. 

She  deemed  herself  fully  entitled,  therefore,  to  reap 
•what  advantage  she  could  from  her  liberality  and 
her  compassion  for  her  uncle,  who  was  sure  to  have 
a  multitude  of  collateral  relations  who  were  stran- 
gers to  her,  for  she  was  the  third  and  last  Toupillier 
girl;  she  had  four  brothers,  and  her  father,  who 
drove  a  hand-cart,  used  to  talk  to  her  in  her  child- 
hood of  three  aunts  and  four  uncles,  all  of  whom 
had  the  oddest  of  careers. 

After  she  had  seen  the  sick  man  she  went  off  at 
a  gallop  to  consult  Cerizet  and  told  him  about  find- 
ing her  daughter,  and  detailed  the  arguments  for 
and  against  the  idea  that  her  uncle  had  a  heap  of 
gold  concealed  in  his  wretched  bed.  Mere  Cardinal 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  277 

did  not  feel  quite  sure  enough  of  her  position  to 
seize  upon  the  succession  legally  or  illegally,  and 
she  went  to  Cerizet  intending  to  abide  by  his 
advice. 

The  petty  usurer,  like  the  men  who  work  in 
sewers,  had  at  last  found  a  diamond  in  the  slime  he 
had  been  wallowing  in  for  four  years,  espying 
therein  one  of  those  lucky  chances  which  are  some- 
times met  with,  so  they  say,  in  the  faubourgs, 
where  heirs  to  great  estates  have  been  seen  in  clogs. 
This  was  the  secret  of  his  good  humor  with  the  man 
whose  ruin  he  had  sworn  to  accomplish.  We  can 
imagine  his  anxiety  as  he  awaited  the  return  of  the 
Widow  Cardinal,  to  whom  the  crafty  deviser  of 
shady  schemes  had  imparted  the  means  of  verifying 
her  suspicions  as  to  the  existence  of  the  treasure, 
promising  her  complete  success  if  she  chose  to  en- 
trust to  him  the  task  of  garnering  the  harvest  He 
was  not  the  man  to  recoil  before  a  crime,  especially 
when  he  saw  an  opportunity  to  induce  somebody 
else  to  commit  it,  while  he  himself  reaped  all  the 
benefit  to  be  derived  from  it  Then  he  would 
buy  the  house  on  Rue  Geoff roy-Marie,  and  he 
could  see  himself  already  a  Parisian  bourgeois,  a 
capitalist  in  a  position  to  undertake  great  business 
enterprises. 

"My  Benjamin,"  said  the  fishvender,  approach- 
ing Cerizet  with  features  inflamed  by  greed  no  less 
than  by  the  swift  pace  at  which  she  had  come,  "my 
uncle's  lying  on  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  in  gold! — and  I  know  that  the  Perraches  have 


278  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

spotted  the  stuff  while  they've  been  pretending  to 
take  care  of  him." 

"Cut  up  among  forty  heirs,"  said  Cerizet,  "that 
fortune  wouldn't  give  each  one  a  very  big  slice. 
Look  here,  Mere  Cardinal,  I'm  going  to  marry  your 
daughter :  give  her  your  uncle's  gold,  and  you  can 
have  the  rente  and  the  house  for  life." 

"Don't  we  run  any  risk?" 

"None  at  all." 

"Done,"  said  Madame  Cardinal,  grasping  her 
future  son-in-law's  hand.  "Six  thousand  a  year: 
that's  not  bad!" 

"And  a  son-in-law  like  me,  you  know!"  added 
Cerizet. 

"I'll  be  an  honest  citizeness  of  Paris!"  cried  La 
Cardinal. 

"Now,"  continued  Cerizet,  after  a  pause,  during 
which  the  son-in-law  and  mother-in-law  embraced, 
"I  must  go  and  look  over  the  ground.  Don't  you 
leave  the  place  again ;  you  just  tell  the  concierge 
you're  waiting  for  a  doctor.  I'll  be  the  doctor  and 
you  pretend  not  to  know  me." 

"You're  a  sly  villain!"  said  Mere  Cardinal, 
giving  him  a  friendly  tap  on  the  chest  by  way 
of  adieu. 

An  hour  afterward,  Cerizet,  dressed  entirely  in 
black,  disguised  by  a  red  beard  and  a  countenance 
of  artistic  workmanship,  arrived  at  Rue  Honore- 
Chevalier  in  a  regulation  turnout  He  asked  the 
cobbler-concierge  to  direct  him  to  the  lodging  of  a 
poor  man  named  Toupillier. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  279 

"Is  Monsieur  the  doctor  expected  by  Madame 
Cardinal?"  the  concierge  asked. 

Cerizet  had  reflected,  no  doubt,  upon  the  serious 
character  of  the  part  he  had  undertaken,  for  he 
evaded  a  direct  reply. 

"Is  this  the  way?"  he  said,  walking  at  random 
toward  one  side  of  the  court-yard. 

"No,  Monsieur,"  Perrache  replied,  and  he  led 
him  to  a  servant's  staircase  leading  to  the  attic 
occupied  by  the  pauper. 

The  inquisitive  concierge  was  reduced  to  the 
necessity  of  questioning  the  cab  driver,  and  we  will 
leave  him  pursuing  investigations  in  that  direction. 

The  house  in  which  Toupillier  lived  is  one  of 
those  which  are  likely  to  lose  half  their  depth  when 
the  streets  are  laid  out  according  to  the  new  plan, 
for  Rue  Honore-Chevalier  is  one  of  the  narrowest  in 
the  whole  Saint-Sulpice  quarter.  The  owner,  being 
prohibited  by  law  from  building  additional  stories 
or  repairing,  was  compelled  to  let  the  barrack  in  the 
condition  in  which  it  was  when  he  purchased  it 
The  street  front  was  excessively  ugly.  The  struc- 
ture consisted  of  a  first-floor  and  attics  above  the 
ground-floor,  and  a  little  square  building  on  either 
side.  The  courtyard  ended  in  a  garden,  well  stocked 
with  trees,  which  was  let  with  the  first-floor.  This 
garden,  which  was  separated  from  the  courtyard  by 
an  iron  fence,  would  have  made  it  possible  for  a 
wealthy  proprietor  to  sell  the  house  to  the  munici- 
pality and  rebuild  it  on  the  courtyard  site;  but  the 
whole  first-floor  was  let  on  an  eighteen-years*  lease 


280  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

to  a  mysterious  personage,  concerning  whom  neither 
the  official  presumption  of  the  concierge  nor  the 
curiosity  of  the  other  tenants  had  been  able  to  glean 
a  morsel  of  information  to  feed  upon. 

This  tenant,  who  was  then  sixty-six  years  old, 
had,  in  1829,  put  up  a  staircase  to  the  rear  window 
of  the  house  looking  on  the  garden,  so  that  he  could 
go  down  and  walk  there  without  passing  through  the 
court-yard.  The  left-hand  half  of  the  ground-floor 
was  occupied  by  a  bookstitcher  who  had  made  the 
carriage-houses  and  stables  over  into  workshops  ten 
years  before,  and  the  other  half  by  a  bookbinder. 
Each  of  these  tenants  occupied  half  of  the  attic-floor 
upon  the  street  The  attics  above  one  of  the  ells  in 
the  rear  formed  part  of  the  quarters  of  the  mysteri- 
ous tenant  Lastly,  Toupillier  paid  a  hundred  francs 
for  the  garret  above  the  little  ell  at  the  left,  reached 
by  a  staircase  which  had  only  a  borrowed  light. 
The  porte  cochere  was  in  a  circular  recess,  indis- 
pensable in  a  narrow  street  where  two  carriages  can 
not  pass  each  other. 

Cerizet  seized  a  cord  which  served  as  a  rail  and 
climbed  the  sort  of  ladder  leading  to  the  room  where 
the  centenarian  was  dying;  in  that  room  the  ghastly 
spectacle  of  simulated  misery  awaited  him. 

In  Paris,  everything  that  is  done  for  an  express 
purpose  is  wonderfully  successful.  In  this  respect 
the  pauper  is  as  clever  as  the  shopkeeper  in  arrang- 
ing his  show-cases,  as  the  pretended  rich  man  seek- 
ing to  obtain  credit 

The  floor  had  never  been  swept;  the  tiles  were 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  281 

invisible  beneath  heaps  of  litter  of  all  sorts,  filth, 
dust,  dried  mud  and  everything  that  Toupillier  had 
thrown  there.  A  wretched  iron  stove,  whose  funnel 
led  into  a  gap  in  a  condemned  chimney,  was  the 
most  prominent  article  6f  furniture  in  the  disgust- 
ing den;  at  the  back  of  an  alcove  was  placed  the 
tent-bed,  with  green  serge  valances  and  head- 
curtains  which  the  worms  had  made  into  lace. 
The  window,  almost  obscured,  had  a  coating  of  filth 
upon  the  panes  which  made  curtains  unnecessary. 
The  whitewashed  walls  presented  a  smoke-dried 
appearance  due  to  the  charcoal  and  peat  the  poor 
man  burned  in  his  stove.  On  the  mantel-piece  were 
two  bottles,  a  chipped  water-pitcher  and  a  cracked 
plate.  A  wretched  worm-eaten  commode  contained 
his  linen  and  clean  clothes.  The  other  furniture 
consisted  of  a  light  stand  of  the  commonest  sort,  a 
table  worth  forty  sous,  and  two  kitchen  chairs 
almost  destitute  of  straw.  The  centenarian's  pic- 
turesque costume  was  hanging  on  a  nail,  and  on  the 
floor  beneath  it  the  shapeless  pieces  of  matting  that 
he  used  as  shoes;  his  illusive  staff  and  his  hat 
formed  a  sort  of  panoply  of  poverty. 

As  he  entered  the  room,  Cerizet's  keen  glance  took 
in  every  detail  of  the  old  man's  appearance.  His 
head  was  resting  on  a  pillow  brown  with  dirt,  with- 
out a  cover,  and  his  angular  profile,  like  those  which 
the  engravers  of  the  last  century  delighted  to  make 
with  landscapes  with  frowning  cliffs,  was  outlined 
in  black  against  the  green  background  of  the  cur- 
tains. Toupillier,  who  was  nearly  six  feet  high, 


282  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

was  staring  fixedly  at  an  imaginary  object  at  the 
foot  of  his  bed;  he  did  not  move  when  he  heard  the 
groaning  of  the  heavy  door,  sheathed  with  iron  and 
furnished  with  a  stout  lock,  which  secured  his 
domicile  against  intrusion. 

"Is  he  conscious?"  queried  Cerizet,  as  La  Cardi- 
nal fell  back  before  him,  for  she  did  not  recognize 
him  until  he  spoke. 

"Almost,"  said  she. 

"Come  out  on  the  staircase,  so  that  he  can't  hear 
us,"  said  Cerizet.  "This  is  what  we  must  do,"  he 
said  in  his  future  mother-in-law's  ear.  "He  is  weak, 
but  his  face  doesn't  look  bad,  and  we  have  a  good 
week  before  us.  I'll  go  and  get  the  kind  of  a  doctor 
that  we  want,  and  I'll  come  back  one  of  these  nights 
with  six  poppy-heads.  In  the  state  he's  in  some 
poppy  tea  will  put  him  in  a  sound  sleep.  I'll  send 
you  a  cot-bed  on  the  pretext  of  fixing  things  for  you 
to  pass  the  nights  with  him.  When  he's  asleep 
we'll  change  him  from  the  green  bed  to  the  cot,  and 
when  we  have  found  out  how  much  the  precious  old 
thing  contains,  why,  we  sha'n't  lack  means  of  cart- 
ing it  off.  The  doctor'll  tell  us  if  he's  in  condition 
to  live  a  few  days,  and  above  all  things  to  make  a 
will." 

"My  son!-" 

"But  we  must  find  who  lives  in  this  barrack;  the 
Perraches  may  give  the  alarm  and  every  tenant's  a 
possible  spy." 

"Bah!  I  know  already."  rejoined  Madame  Cardi- 
nal, "that  the  first-floor  tenant,  Monsieur  du  Portail, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  283 

a  little  old  fellow,  is  taking  care  of  a  madwoman;  I 
heard  an  old  Flemish  woman  named  Katt  call  her 
Lydie  this  morning. "  (See  Splendors  and  Miseries.) 
"His  only  servant,  named  Bruno,  is  another  old 
fellow  like  himself,  and  does  everything  but  cook." 

"But  the  bookbinder  and  the  stitcher  are  at  work 
early  in  the  morning.  However,  we  must  look 
round,"  he  added,  like  a  man  who  has  no  definite 
plan  formed.  "I'll  go  to  the  mayor's  office  in  your 
arrondissement  meanwhile,  and  get  the  certificate  of 
Olympe's  birth  and  get  ready  for  the  banns  to  be 
published.  We'll  be  married  next  Saturday  week !" 

"How  he  goes  on!  how  he  goes  on!  the  beggar!" 
said  Mere  Cardinal,  nudging  this  redoubtable  son- 
in-law  with  her  shoulder. 

As  he  went  down,  Cerizet  was  surprised  to  see 
the  little  old  man,  Du  Portail,  walking  in  the  gar- 
den with  one  of  the  most  important  personages  in 
the  government,  Comte  Martial  de  la  Roche-Hugon. 
He  remained  in  the  courtyard,  scrutinizing  the  old 
house,  which  was  built  under  Louis  XIV.,  and  whose 
yellow  walls,  although  of  hewn  stone,  seemed  to 
stoop  like  old  Toupillier.  He  looked  into  the  two 
shops  and  counted  the  workmen.  The  place  was  as 
silent  as  a  cloister.  Finding  that  he  was  watched 
himself,  Cerizet  went  away,  reflecting  on  the  diffi- 
culty of  getting  hold  of  the  money  hidden  by  the 
dying  man,  although  there  was  but  little  on  top  of  it 

"Could  we  take  it  away  at  night?"  he  muttered; 
"the  concierges  are  on  the  watch,  and  in  the  daytime 
we  should  be  seen  by  twenty  people.  It's  no  easy 


284  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

matter  to  carry  twenty-five  thousand  francs  in  gold 
on  one's  person." 

Societies  may  theoretically  become  perfect  under 
two  forms ;  the  first  is  a  state  of  civilization  in  which 
morality,  being  equally  distributed  to  all,  does  not 
admit  even  the  idea  of  crime;  the  Jesuits  attained 
that  sublime  condition,  first  presented  by  the  primi- 
tive Church;  the  second  is  another  state  of  civili- 
zation in  which  the  surveillance  of  the  citizens  by 
one  another  makes  crime  impossible.  The  form  of 
perfection  sought  to  be  attained  by  modern  society 
is  that  wherein  wrong-doing  encounters  so  many 
obstacles  that  one  must  shut  one's  ears  to  reason 
before  trying  to  commit  it.  Indeed,  no  one  of  the 
iniquitous  deeds  which  the  law  does  not  reach 
really  goes  unpunished,  and  the  judgment  of  society 
is  more  severe  than  that  of  the  courts.  Let  a  man 
suppress  an  unwitnessed  will,  as  was  done  by  Min- 
oret,  postmaster  at  Nemours,  and  the  crime  is 
hunted  down  by  the  spies  of  virtue  as  a  theft  is 
hunted  down  by  the  police.  No  indelicacy  passes 
unnoticed,  and  wherever  there  is  a  bruise  the  mark 
is  ineradicable.  Nor  can  inanimate  things  be  put 
out  of  sight  any  more  readily  than  men,  for,  es- 
pecially in  Paris,  objects  are  carefully  numbered, 
houses  guarded,  and  streets  and  squares  watched. 
To  live  at  ease,  crime  needs  some  sanction  like 
that  enjoyed  by  members  of  the  Bourse,  or  like  that 
afforded  by  Cerizet's  clients,  who  never  com- 
plained, and  who  would  have  trembled  not  to  find 
their  flayer  in  his  kitchen  on  a  Tuesday. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  285 

"Well,  my  dear  sir,"  said  the  concierge,  going  to 
meet  Cerizet,  "how  is  the  poor  man,  God's  friend?" 

"I'm  no  doctor,"  replied  Cerizet,  by  no  means  in- 
clined to  undertake  the  role;  "1  am  Madame  Cardi- 
nal's man  of  business;  I  just  advised  her  to  have  a 
bed  made  up  so  that  she  can  be  on  hand,  day  and 
night,  to  look  after  her  uncle;  but  perhaps  he'll  need 
a  nurse." 

"I  can  nurse  him,"  said  Madame  Perrache;  "I've 
nursed  women  through  their  lying-in." 

"Well,  we'll  see,"  said  Cerizet;  "I'll  arrange 
about  that  Who's  the  tenant  of  your  first 
floor  ?" 

"Monsieur  du  Portail. — Oh!  he's  been  living  here 
for  thirty  years ;  he  has  an  annuity,  Monsieur,  and 
he's  a  very  respectable  old  party.  Men  who  have 
annuities,  you  know,  live  on  their  income.  He  used 
to  be  in  business.  Eleven  years  now  he's  been  try- 
ing to  cure  one  of  his  friends'  daughters,  Mademoi- 
selle Lydie  de  la  Peyrade,  of  insanity.  She's  well 
taken  care  of,  I  tell  you,  by  two  of  the  biggest  doctors 
in  Paris,  and  they  had  a  consultation  this  very 
morning.  But,  so  far,  nothing  seems  to  do  her  any 
good,  and  they  even  have  to  keep  a  close  watch  on 
her,  for  sometimes  she  gets  up  at  night — " 

"Mademoiselle  Lydie  de  la  Peyrade!"  cried  Ceri- 
zet; "are  you  quite  sure  of  the  name?" 

"Madame  Katt,  her  companion,  who  does  what 
little  cooking  they  have  to  do,  has  told  me  so  a  thous- 
and times,  although  she  nor  Monsieur  Bruno,  the 
servant,  don't  talk  much  as  a  general  thing.  It's 


286  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

like  talking  to  the  wall  to  try  to  get  anything  out  of 
them.  We've  been  here  for  twenty  years,  and  we 
haven't  ever  found  out  anything  about  Monsieur  du 
Portail.  You  see,  my  dear  man,  he  owns  the  little 
house  alongside ;  do  you  see  that  inside  door  ?  Well, 
he  can  go  in  and  out  as  he  pleases  and  have  people 
come  to  see  him  through  there  without  me  knowing 
anything  about  it.  Our  landlord  isn't  any  further 
ahead  than  we  are,  so  far  as  that  goes ;  when  anyone 
rings  at  the  little  door  Monsieur  Bruno  answers  the 
bell—" 

"So  you  didn't  see  the  gentleman  go  in  that  the 
old  mystery-monger's  talking  with  now?" 

"Faith!  no." 

"She  must  be  Theodose's  uncle's  daughter,"  said 
Cerizet  to  himself,  as  he  returned  to  his  cab.  "1 
wonder  if  this  Du  Portail  can  be  the  unknown  pre- 
server who  sent  my  rascal  twenty-five  hundred  francs 
some  time  ago? — Suppose  I  should  send  the  old  fel- 
low an  anonymous  letter,  telling  him  of  the  danger 
our  worthy  advocate  is  in,  all  on  account  of  certain 
notes  for  twenty-five  thousand  francs?" 

An  hour  later  a  cot-bed  with  all  its  appurtenances 
arrived  for  Madame  Cardinal,  to  whom  the  inquisi- 
tive portress  offered  her  services  in  the  way  of  sup- 
plying her  with  food. 

"Do  you  want  to  see  Monsieur  le  Cure?"  Mere 
Cardinal  asked  her  uncle.  She  had  noticed  that  the 
arrival  of  the  bed  seemed  to  rouse  him  from  his 
somnolent  condition. 

"I  want  wine!"  replied  the  miser. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  287 

"How  do  you  feel,  Pere  Toupillier?"  queried 
Madame  Perrache,  in  her  most  wheedling  tones. 

"I  tell  you  I  want  wine!"  repeated  the  old  fellow 
with  a  persistence  and  energy  which  were  hardly  to 
be  expected  from  one  in  his  weak  state. 

"We  don't  know  if  it's  good  for  you,  nunkie," 
said  La  Cardinal,  soothingly;  "we  must  wait  and 
see  what  the  doctor  says." 

"Doctor!  I  won't  have  a  doctor,"  cried  Toupil- 
lier,  "and  what  are  you  doing  here?  I  don't  need 
anyone." 

"Dear  uncle,  I  came  to  find  out  if  there  wasn't 
something  that  'ud  tickle  your  appetite;  I've  got 
some  nice  fresh  sole:  eh?  a  bit  o'  sole  with  a  slice 
of  lemon?" 

"Nice  stuff  your  fish  is,"  replied  Toupillier; 
"rotten's  no  name  for  it !  The  last  you  brought  me, 
six  weeks  ago  and  more,  is  still  in  the  cupboard;  you 
can  take  it  back." 

"God!  these  sick  people  are  ungrateful !"  said  La 
Cardinal  in  an  undertone  to  Dame  Perrache. 

At  the  same  time,  to  show  her  solicitude,  she 
shook  up  the  pillow  under  the  sick  man's  head. 

"There,  nunkie;  ain't  that  better  ?" 

"Let  me  alone,"  growled  Toupillier,  wrathfully, 
"I  want  to  be  alone;  give  me  some  wine  and  leave 
me  in  peace!" 

"Don't  get  mad,  little  uncle;  we're  going  to  find 
the  wine  for  you." 

"Six  francs  the  bottle,  Rue  des  Canettes!"  cried 
the  miser. 


288  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"All  right,"  rejoined  Mere  Cardinal;  "but  let 
me  see  what  change  I've  got.  I  want  to  stock 
your  cellar  handsome.  An  uncle's  a  second  father, 
you  know,  and  we  mustn't  stick  at  trifles  for 
him!" 

As  she  spoke  she  sat  down  on  one  of  the  dilapi- 
dated chairs,  with  her  legs  spread  apart,  and  emp- 
tied all  the  contents  of  her  pockets  into  her  apron ; 
a  knife,  her  snuff-box,  two  Mont-de-Piete  tickets, 
crusts  of  bread,  and  a  quantity  of  small  change,  in 
which  she  finally  found  a  few  silver  coins. 

This  exhibition,  which  was  intended  as  a  demon- 
stration of  the  most  open-hearted,  impulsive  devo- 
tion, had  no  effect  Toupillier  did  not  even  appear 
to  have  noticed  it.  Exhausted  by  the  feverish 
energy  with  which  he  had  demanded  his  favorite 
remedy,  he  made  an  effort  to  change  his  position, 
and  with  his  back  turned  to  his  two  nurses,  having 
again  muttered :  "Wine!  wine!"  he  made  no  further 
sound  save  the  stertorous  respiration  which  indicated 
that  the  chest  was  beginning  to  fill. 

"Still,  I  suppose  1  must  go  there  and  get  his  wine!" 
said  La  Cardinal,  sulkily,  replacing  in  her  pockets 
the  cargo  she  had  taken  therefrom. 

"If  you  don't  want  to  put  yourself  out,  Mere  Car- 
dinal?"— suggested  Dame  Perrache,  still  eager  to 
offer  her  services. 

The  fishwoman  hesitated  a  moment;  but,  upon 
reflection,  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  might  possibly 
learn  something  from  a  conversation  with  the  wine- 
shop keeper,  and,  so  long  as  Toupillier  was  lying  on 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  289 

his  treasure,  there  was  no  objection  to  leaving  the 
concierge  alone  with  him. 

"Thank  you,  Madame  Perrache, "  said  she;  "it's 
just  as  well  for  me  to  know  the  people  he  trades 
with." 

Having  found  behind  the  light  stand  a  dirty  bottle 
which  would  hold  a  good  two  litres,  she  said: 

"It's  Rue  des  Canettes,  ain't  it?" 

"Corner  of  Rue  Guisarde,"  replied  Dame  Per- 
rache, "Legrelu,  a  tall,  good-looking  man  with  big 
whiskers  and  no  hair." 

Then  lowering  her  voice  she  said:  "his  six-franc 
wine,  you  know,  \sfirst  Roussillon.  The  wine-shop 
man's  all  right,  though;  it  will  be  enough  for  you 
just  to  tell  him  that  you  come  for  his  customer,  the 
poor  man  of  Saint-Sulpice." 

"I  don't  need  to  be  told  a  thing  twice,"  replied 
La  Cardinal,  opening  the  door,  and  making  a  pre- 
tence of  going. — "By  the  way,"  said  she,  coming 
back, — "what  the  devil  does  he  burn  in  his  stove, 
if  there's  any  medicine  to  be  heated?" 

"Dame,"  replied  the  concierge,  "he  hasn't  laid 
in  his  winter  stock  yet;  and  here  in  the  middle  of 
summer — " 

"And  not  so  much  as  a  saucepan!  not  a  pot!" 
continued  La  Cardinal;  "good  God!  what  house- 
keeping! I'd  like  something  to  bring  provisions 
home  in:  for  it's  a  shame  to  have  everybody  see 
what  you  bring  from  the  market" 

"I  can  lend  you  a  market  basket,"  said  the  con- 
cierge, still  eager  and  officious. 
19 


2QO  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Thank'ee,  I'll  buy  a  basket,"  replied  the  fish- 
woman,  thinking  more  about  what  there  might  be 
to  take  away  from  the  miser's  abode  than  about 
what  there  was  to  be  taken  thither.  "Ain't  there 
an  Auvergnat  somewhere  about  here?"  she  added. 

"At  the  corner  of  Rue  Ferou,  you'll  find  what  you 
want:  a  fine  place  where  they  have  painted  logs 
on  the  outside  of  the  shop,  so  natural  you'd  think 
they  were  going  to  speak  to  you." 

"I  see  it  from  here,"  said  Madame  Cardinal. 

Before  taking  her  final  departure  she  indulged  in 
a  bit  of  most  profound  hypocrisy.  We  have  seen 
how  she  hesitated  to  leave  the  concierge  alone  with 
the  invalid. 

"Madame  Perrache,"  said  she,  "don't  leave  the 
dear  man  until  I  get  back!" 


The  reader  will  have  noticed  that  Cerizet  had  not 
adopted  a  very  decided  course  in  the  affair  he  had 
undertaken.  The  role  of  physician,  which  he  had 
at  first  thought  of  assuming,  eventually  frightened 
him,  and  he  represented  himself  to  the  Perraches  as 
his  accomplice's  man  of  business.  As  soon  as  he 
was  alone  he  considered  the  matter  more  carefully, 
and  saw  that  his  plan,  involving  the  presence  of  a 
doctor,  a  nurse  and  a  notary,  was  surrounded  by 
most  serious  difficulties.  A  regularly  executed  will 
in  Madame  Cardinal's  favor  was  not  a  thing  to  be 
procured  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  It  would  take 
a  long  while  to  accustom  the  miser's  stubborn,  sus- 
picious mind  to  the  idea,  and  death  was  lurking 
there,  and  could  defeat  the  most  skilful  preparations 
with  a  turn  of  his  hand. 

As  to  repeating  the  famous  scene  from  Regnard's 
Legataire,  how  dream  of  such  a  thing  amid  the  sub- 
tleties of  a  police  organization  and  a  civilization, 
which  seem  to  think  of  nothing  but  depriving  the 
drama  and  the  novel  of  what  little  vivifying  air  is 
still  left  for  them  to  breathe ! 

Of  course,  if  the  idea  of  inducing  the  dying  man 

to  make  a  will  was  abandoned,  the  eighteen  hundred 

francs  a  year  in  the  public  funds  and  the  house  on 

Rue  Notre-Dame  de  Nazareth  must  be  left  to  the 

(291) 


292  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

heirs-at-law ;  and  Madame  Cardinal,  for  whom  it 
had  been  their  scheme  to  obtain  a  direct  bequest 
of  those  two  things,  would  simply  come  in  for  her 
share  in  the  succession:  but  to  abandon  that  visible 
portion  of  the  inheritance  was  the  surest  way  to 
appropriate  the  hidden  portion  Moreover,  when 
that  was  once  safely  housed,  what  was  there  to  pre- 
vent their  returning  to  the  matter  of  the  will  ? 

Thus  reducing  the  operation  to  much  simpler 
terms,  Cerizet  restricted  it  to  the  device  of  the 
poppy-heads,  of  which  he  had  already  spoken,  and, 
provided  with  no  other  implement  of  war  than  that, 
he  was  returning  to  Toupillier's  to  give  Madame 
Cardinal  fresh  instructions,  when  he  met  her,  with 
the  basket  she  had  just  purchased  on  her  arm;  in 
the  basket  was  the  sick  man's  panacea. 

"Well,  well,"  said  the  usurer,  "is  this  the  way 
you  stay  at  your  post?" 

"I  had  to  go  out  and  buy  some  wine.  He  cried 
like  a  crazy  man  to  be  left  in  peace;  he  wanted  to 
be  alone  and  wanted  his  drink!  The  critter's  got 
the  idea  in  his  head  that  prime  Roussillon  is  the 
best  thing  for  him.  I'll  swell  his  belly!  when  he's 
slewed  perhaps  he  won't  be  so  uneasy." 

"You're  right,"  said  Cerizet,  sententiously. 
"We  must  never  gainsay  sick  people;  but  we  must 
fix  the  wine,  you  know:  by  making  an  infusion  of 
these" — and  he  lifted  one  of  the  lids  of  the  basket 
and  slipped  in  the  poppy-heads — "you  will  give  the 
poor  old  man  five  or  six  hours'  good  sound  sleep;  I'll 
come  and  see  you  this  evening,  and  then  I  don't 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  293 

think  there'll  be  anything  to  prevent  our  looking 
into  the  size  of  the  inheritance  a  bit" 

"I  see!"  said  Madame  Cardinal,  with  a  wink. 

"Till  to-night,  then!"  said  the  usurer,  and  the 
interview  came  to  an  end. 

He  felt  that  he  had  engaged  in  a  difficult,  ugly 
affair,  and  he  did  not  care  to  be  seen  on  the  street 
talking  with  his  confederate. 

When  she  returned  to  the  pauper's  garret,  she 
found  him  still  in  the  same  lethargic  state;  she  dis- 
missed Madame  Perrache,  and  went  to  the  door  to 
get  a  bundle  of  sawed  wood  she  had  ordered  from 
the  Auvergnat  on  Rue  Ferou. 

In  an  earthen  saucepan  with  which  she  had  pro- 
vided herself,  and  which  fitted  the  opening  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  stove,  commonly  used  by  the  poor 
for  the  teakettle,  she  placed  the  poppy-heads  swim- 
ming in  the  two-thirds  of  the  wine  she  had  brought, 
and  kindled  a  hot  fire  underneath,  so  as  to  obtain  the 
desired  decoction  as  soon  as  possible.  The  crackling 
of  the  wood,  and  the  heat  which  soon  made  itself 
felt  in  the  room  aroused  Toupillier  from  his  stupor. 

"Fire  here!"  he  cried  when  he  saw  that  there 
was  a  fire  in  the  stove;  "do  you  want  to  burn  the 
house  down?" 

"But  it's  wood  I  bought  with  my  own  money, 
nunkie,  to  warm  your  wine.  The  doctor  doesn't 
want  you  to  drink  it  cold." 

"Where  is  the  wine  ?"  demanded  Toupillier,  some- 
what soothed  to  find  that  the  culinary  operations 
were  not  being  carried  on  at  his  expense. 


294  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Must  let  it  come  to  a  boil,"  replied  the  nurse; 
"the  doctor  said  we  must  be  sure  about  that.  But 
if  you'll  be  good  I'll  give  you  half  a  glass  cold  just 
to  wet  your  whistle.  I'll  take  the  risk  if  you  won't 
tell!"  ' 

"I  don't  want  your  doctors ;  they're  a  pack  of  ras- 
cals trying  to  kill  everybody  off!"  cried  Toupillier, 
roused  to  renewed  life  by  the  prospect  of  having 
something  to  drink.  "Well,  where's  the  wine?"  he 
added,  in  the  tone  of  a  man  whose  patience  was 
exhausted. 

Feeling  sure  that,  even  if  it  did  no  harm  to  oblige 
him,  it  could  do  no  good,  La  Cardinal  filled  a  glass 
half  full,  and  handed  it  to  the  sick  man  with  one 
hand  while  with  the  other  she  raised  him  to  a  sit- 
ting position,  so  that  he  could  drink. 

With  his  lean,  eager  fingers  Toupillier  snatched 
the  glass  and  absorbed  its  contents  at  a  single 
draught. 

"That's fine  for  a  taste!"  he  said,  "but there  was 
water  in  it!" 

"Ah!  you  mustn't  say  that,  nunkie!  I  went  and 
got  it  myself  at  Pere  Legrelu's,  and  I  gave  it  to  you 
just  as  it  came ;  but  let  the  other  simmer ;  the  doctor 
said  we  could  give  you  some  when  you're  thirsty." 

Toupillier  resigned  himself  to  his  fate  with  a 
shrug,  and  after  fifteen  minutes,  the  decoction  being 
then  in  a  state  to  be  administered,  La  Cardinal, 
without  further  appeal,  carried  him  a  glass  filled  to 
the  brim. 

The  avidity  with  which  the  old  man  drank  did  not 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  295 

permit  him  to  detect  at  first  that  the  wine  had  been 
tampered  with ;  but  at  the  last  swallow  he  noticed 
a  nasty  sickening  taste,  and  threw  the  glass  down 
on  the  bed,  crying  out  that  she  was  trying  to  poison 
him. 

"Ah,  yes!  this  is  how  much  poison  there  is  in  it," 
retorted  the  fishwife,  inverting  the  glass  so  that 
what  was  left  in  the  bottom  dropped  into  her  mouth ; 
thereupon  she  declared  that  if  the  wine  tasted  dif- 
ferently to  the  old  man,  it  was  because  his  mouth 
was  bad. 

At  the  close  of  this  discussion,  which  lasted  some 
little  time,  the  narcotic  began  to  work,  and  within 
an  hour  the  invalid  was  in  a  heavy  sleep. 

In  her  enforced  idleness  while  awaiting  Cerizet, 
La  Cardinal  had  a  brilliant  idea:  it  occurred  to  her 
that,  in  order  to  facilitate  all  the  going  and  coming 
that  might  be  necessary  when  the  time  had  arrived 
to  carry  away  the  treasure,  it  would  be  well  to  mod- 
erate the  watchfulness  of  the  Per r aches.  Conse- 
quently, having  first  taken  the  precaution  to  throw 
away  the  poppy-heads,  she  called  the  female  con- 
cierge, and  said  to  her : 

"Come  and  taste  his  wine,  Mere  Perrache! 
Wouldn't  you  'a'  thought  he  was  all  right  to  guzzle 
a  cask  of  it?  And  here  after  one  glass  he's  had 
enough!" 

"Your  health,"  said  the  concierge,  clinking 
glasses  with  La  Cardinal,  who  was  careful  to  honor 
the  toast  in  undoctored  wine. 

Being  a   less  accomplished   gourmand  than  the 


296  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

pauper,  Madame  Perrache  failed  to  detect  in  the 
insidious  beverage,  which  she  drank  cold,  any  taste 
which  might  lead  her  to  suspect  its  narcotic  powers; 
on  the  contrary,  she  declared  that  it  was  like  velvet, 
and  regretted  that  her  husband  was  not  there  to  get 
his  share  of  the  spoil. 

After  chatting  together  for  some  time,  the  two 
gossips  separated;  whereupon,  with  the  sausages 
she  had  purchased  and  the  remains  of  the  Roussil- 
lon,  Madame  Cardinal  made  a  hearty  meal,  which 
she  topped  off  with  a  nap.  Without  reckoning  the 
excitement  of  the  day,  the  influence  of  one  of  the 
headiest  wines  in  the  world  would  sufficiently  ex- 
plain the  soundness  and  duration  of  her  siesta; 
when  she  awoke  night  was  beginning  to  fall. 

Her  first  thought  was  to  cast  a  glance  at  the  sick 
bed.  The  invalid  was  sleeping  restlessly  and 
dreaming  aloud. 

"Diamonds!"  he  cried,  "diamonds?  When  I'm 
dead!  not  before!" 

"Hoity-toity!"  said  Madame  Cardinal;  "that's 
the  only  thing  we  need  now — that  he  should  have 
diamonds — " 

She  saw  that  Toupillier  was  in  the  clutches  of  an 
ugly  nightmare,  and,  instead  of  relieving  him  by 
helping  him  to  change  his  position,  she  leaned  over 
his  head  in  order  not  to  lose  a  word,  hoping  to  glean 
some  important  revelation. 

At  that  moment  a  sharp  tap  at  the  door,  from 
which  the  thoughtful  nurse  had  been  careful  to  take 
the  key,  announced  Cerizet's  coming. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  297 

"Well?"  said  he,  as  he  entered. 

"He  took  the  drug.  For  a  good  four  hours  he's 
been  sleeping  like  a  Jesus.  Just  now  he  was  talk- 
ing about  diamonds  in  his  dreams." 

"Damnation!"  said  Cerizet,  "there'd  be  nothing 
surprising  about  it  if  we  should  find  some.  These 
paupers,  when  they  set  about  getting  rich,  get  hold 
of  everything." 

"Look  here!  my  boy,"  said  La  Cardinal,  "what 
the  devil  made  you  go  and  tell  Mere  Perrache  you 
were  my  man  of  business,  and  that  you  ain't  in  the 
medical  way  ?  We  agreed  this  morning  that  you 
was  to  come  here  as  a  doctor." 

Cerizet  did  not  choose  to  admit  that  the  assump- 
tion of  that  title  seemed  to  him  fraught  with  danger ; 
he  was  afraid  of  discouraging  his  accomplice. 

"I  saw  the  woman  was  preparing  to  consult  me 
professionally,"  he  said,  "and  I  took  that  way  of 
getting  rid  of  her." 

"Well,  well!"  said  La  Cardinal,  "great  minds 
think  alike;  that  was  my  little  game,  too,  to  turn 
the  thing  off  that  way;  seeing  a  man  of  business 
come  here  seemed  to  give  Madame  Leather-scratcher 
something  to  chew  over.  Did  the  Perraches  see 
you  come  in?" 

"1  thought  the  woman  seemed  to  be  asleep  in  her 
chair,"  Cerizet  replied. 

"Well  she  may,"  rejoined  La  Cardinal,  signifi- 
cantly. 

"Really?"  queried  Cerizet. 

"Parbleu!"  said  the  fishwoman,  "when  there's 


298  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

enough  for  one,  there's  enough  for  two ;  I  made  her 
take  all  there  was  left" 

"The  husband's  on  deck,"  said  Cerizet,  "for  he 
looked  up  from  his  cobbling  to  give  me  a  gracious  nod 
of  recognition  I  could  very  well  have  done  without" 

Just  wait  till  it's  dark,  then,  and  we'll  play  him  a 
trick  that'll  make  him  see  sparks." 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  with  a  nerve  that 
moved  the  usurer  to  admiration,  the  fishvender 
regaled  the  gullible  concierge  with  a  fairy  story 
about  a  monsieur  who  did  not  want  her  to  show  him 
out  and  whom  she  insisted  on  rivaling  in  courtesy. 
As  she  was  going  through  the  form  of  escorting  the 
imaginary  doctor  to  the  street  door,  she  pretended 
that  the  wind  had  blown  out  her  light,  and  while  she 
was  trying  to  relight  it  she  put  out  Perrache's.  All 
this  fuss,  accompanied  with  exclamations  and  deaf- 
ening chatter,  was  so  cleverly  managed,  that  if  he 
had  been  summoned  before  the  court  the  concierge 
would  not  have  hesitated  to  declare  on  oath  that  the 
doctor,  of  whose  arrival  he  was  personally  cognizant, 
had  come  down  from  the  pauper's  quarters  and  left 
the  house  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock. 

When  the  two  confederates  were  thus  left  in 
peaceful  possession  of  the  theatre  of  their  opera- 
tions, La  Cardinal  unwittingly  took  the  part  of 
Beranger,  and,  as  if  she  were  seeking  to  conceal  the 
amours  of  a  Lisette,  she  arranged  her  rabbit  skin 
shawl  like  a  curtain  before  the  window,  in  order  to 
prevent  any  prying  neighbor  from  seeing  any  part 
of  the  scene  that  was  in  preparation. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  299 

In  the  Luxembourg  quarter  day  ends  at  an  early 
hour,  and,  just  before  ten  o'clock,  all  sounds,  within 
as  well  as  without  the  house,  had  almost  entirely 
ceased.  A  neighbor,  deeply  interested  in  a  serial 
romance,  held  the  conspirators  in  check  for  some 
time ;  but  as  soon  as  he  had  placed  the  extinguisher 
over  his  candle,  Cerizet  gave  the  signal  for  setting 
about  their  task.  If  they  should  begin  without  delay, 
they  could  have  more  confidence  that  the  sleeper 
would  remain  under  the  influence  of  the  narcotic; 
and,  furthermore,  if  the  search  for  the  treasure  did 
not  occupy  much  time,  there  would  be  no  reason  why 
La  Cardinal  should  not  have  the  street  door  opened 
on  the  pretext  that  she  must  go  to  the  druggist's  for 
some  medicine  imperatively  required  by  a  change 
for  the  worse  in  the  invalid's  condition.  They 
might  well  hope  that  the  Perraches,  after  the  custom 
of  concierges  aroused  from  their  first  sleep,  would 
simply  pull  the  cord  without  rising.  Cerizet  could 
then  go  out  with  his  accomplice,  and  they  could  put 
part  of  the  booty  in  safe  keeping  on  their  first  trip. 
It  would  be  easy  to  invent  some  way  of  taking 
care  of  the  balance  during  the  following  day. 

Strong  as  he  was  at  the  council  board,  Cerizet's 
physical  strength  was  decidedly  inadequate,  and, 
except  for  the  assistance  of  the  robust  Madame  Car- 
dinal, he  would  never  have  succeeded  in  lifting 
from  his  bed  what  might  be  called  the  corpse  of  the 
ex-drum-major.  In  his  deathly  sleep,  completely 
unconscious,  Toupillier  was  simply  an  inert  mass 
which  luckily  could  be  moved  about  without  many 


300  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

precautions.  Endowed  with  renewed  strength  by 
her  greed,  the  athletic  fishwoman,  notwithstanding 
the  very  slight  assistance  rendered  by  her  man  of 
business,  succeeded  in  accomplishing  the  trans-ship- 
ment of  her  uncle  without  accident,  and  the  bed  was 
at  last  given  over  to  her  eager  investigations. 

At  first  they  found  nothing,  and  La  Cardinal, 
being  pressed  to  explain  how  she  had  satisfied  her- 
self in  the  morning  that  her  uncle  was  lying  upon  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  in  gold,  was  forced  to  con- 
fess that  a  conversation  with  the  Perraches  and  her 
own  vivid  imagination  were  almost  entirely  respon- 
sible for  her  pretended  certainty.  Cerizet  was 
beside  himself:  to  have  passed  the  whole  day  nurs- 
ing the  thought  and  the  hope  of  a  fortune,  to  have 
decided  to  attempt  a  hazardous  and  compromising 
step,  and,  after  all,  to  find  himself  face  to  face  with 
nothing!  The  disappointment  was  so  cruel  that,  if 
he  had  not  feared  that  he  might  get  the  worst  of  an 
encounter  with  the  muscular  force  of  his  future 
stepmother,  he  would  have  taken  extreme  measures 
with  her  in  his  rage. 

However,  he  vented  his  wrath  in  words.  La 
Cardinal  made  no  other  reply  to  the  harsh  tongue- 
lashing  she  received  than  to  say  that  all  hope  was 
not  lost,  and  with  a  confidence  that  would  have 
moved  mountains,  she  went  on  overhauling  the  bed 
from  end  to  end,  and  finally  set  about  emptying  the 
wretched  pallet  which  she  had  explored  so  thor- 
oughly on  the  outside  to  no  purpose;  but  Cerizet 
would  not  give  his  consent  to  that  extreme  measure, 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  301 

reminding  her  that  after  she  had  concluded  her 
autopsy  of  the  mattress,  a  quantity  of  broken  straw 
would  remain  on  the  floor  and  might  arouse  suspi- 
cion. 

To  avoid  self-reproach  thereafter,  La  Cardinal, 
despite  the  opposition  of  Cerizet,  who  thought  it  an 
absurd  thing  to  do,  determined  to  remove  the  corded 
bottom  of  the  bed ;  and  her  faculties  must  have  been 
tremendously  sharpened  by  the  excitement  of  the 
search,  for,  as  she  raised  the  wooden  frame,  she 
heard  the  sound  of  some  small  object  falling  on  the 
floor. 

Attaching  to  this  incident,  which  nobody  else 
would  have  noticed,  an  importance  that  nothing 
seemed  to  justify,  the  ardent  explorer  at  once  seized 
the  light,  and,  after  fumbling  about  for  some  time  in 
the  filth  of  every  description  which  lay  deep  upon 
the  floor,  she  at  last  put  her  hand  upon  a  small  piece 
of  polished  iron,  half  an  inch  long,  the  use  whereof 
was  utterly  inexplicable  to  her. 

"It's  a  key!"  cried  Cerizet,  who  had  walked  to 
her  side  with  an  indifferent  air,  but  whose  imagina- 
tion at  once  set  off  at  a  gallop. 

"Aha !  you  see !"  exclaimed  La  Cardinal,  triumph- 
antly; "but  what  can  this  thing  open?"  she  added, 
thoughtfully;  "a  doll's  wardrobe?" 

"Not  at  all,"  Cerizet  replied;  "it's  a  modern  in- 
vention, and  big  locks  are  worked  with  little  tools 
like  that." 

As  he  spoke  he  took  in  with  a  swift  glance  every- 
thing the  room  contained  in  the  way  of  furniture, 


302  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

went  to  the  commode  and  pulled  out  all  the  drawers, 
looked  into  the  stove  and  the  table  drawer;  but 
nowhere  was  there  any  semblance  of  a  lock  that 
that  key  would  fit. 

Suddenly  La  Cardinal  had  an  inspiration. 

"Wait!"  said  she;  "I  saw  that  the  old  shark  never 
once  took  his  eyes  off  the  wall  in  front  of  him  when 
he  was  lying  in  bed." 

"A  cupboard  hidden  in  the  wall?  that  isn't  im- 
possible," said  Cerizet,  excitedly  seizing  the  light. 

After  scrutinizing  with  great  care  the  door  of  the 
recess  which  was  opposite  the  head  of  the  bed,  he 
could  see  nothing  there  but  a  vast  network  of  dust 
and  spiders'  webs. 

He  thereupon  resorted  to  the  sense  of  touch,  which 
goes  more  to  the  root  of  things,  and  began  to  sound 
and  tap  the  wall  in  all  directions.  He  found  at  last 
that,  for  a  limited  space  around  the  spot  on  which 
Toupillier  had  kept  his  eyes  fixed,  the  wall  gave 
forth  a  hollow  sound,  and  that  in  that  spot  he  was 
striking  upon  wood.  He  thereupon  rubbed  the  place 
violently  with  his  handkerchief  rolled  into  a  ball, 
arid  beneath  the  layer  of  dust  he  removed  he 
speedily  discovered  a  strip  of  oak  hermetically 
sealed  in  the  wall :  at  one  side  of  the  board  he  spied 
a  small  round  hole,  which  proved  to  be  that  of  the 
lock  for  which  the  key  was  made. 

While  Cerizet  was  turning  the  bolt,  which  worked 
very  smoothly,  La  Cardinal,  pale  and  gasping  for 
breath,  held  the  light;  but,  O  cruel  disappointment! 
when  the  cupboard  was  opened  nothing  was  to  be 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  303 

seen  save  an  empty  space,  which  the  candle  hastily 
thrust  in  by  the  fishvender  lighted  up  to  no  purpose. 

While  this  infuriated  Bacchante  uttered  shrieks  of 
despair  and  addressed  her  beloved  uncle  by  all  the 
most  abusive  epithets  one  can  imagine,  Cerizet 
retained  his  self-possession. 

Having  thrust  his  arm  into  the  opening  and  felt 
the  back  and  sides,  he  exclaimed : 

"An  iron  cupboard!"  and  in  the  next  breath  he 
added,  testily:  "Give  me  a  light  for  God's  sake, 
Madame  Cardinal!" 

As  the  candle  did  not  cast  a  satisfactory  light  into 
the  place  he  wished  to  explore,  he  pulled  it  out  of 
the  neck  of  the  bottle  in  which  La  Cardinal  had 
stuck  it  in  default  of  a  candlestick,  and,  taking  it 
in  his  hand,  passed  it  carefully  along  every  portion 
of  the  iron-walled  cavity  whose  existence  they  had 
discovered. 

"No  keyhole!"  he  exclaimed,  after  a  minute 
examination;  "there  must  be  a  secret  lock." 

"What  a  swindler  the  old  hunks  is!"  said  Mad- 
ame Cardinal,  while  Cerizet  was  passing  his  bony 
fingers  over  every  inch  of  the  surface. 

"Ah!"  he  exclaimed,  "I've  got  it!"  after  feeling 
and  tapping  for  more  than  half  an  hour. 

Meanwhile,  Madame  Cardinal  was  hovering  be- 
tween life  and  death,  as  it  were. 

Under  the  constant  pressure  to  which  it  was  ex- 
posed, the  iron  plate  suddenly  went  up  into  the 
wall,  and  amid  a  mass  of  gold  tossed  haphazard  into 
a  cavity  of  considerable  size  which  was  thus  exposed 


304  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

to  view,  lay  a  red  morocco  jewel-case,  which,  by  its 
size,  aroused  hopes  of  a  magnificent  booty. 

"I  take  the  diamonds  for  Olympe's  dot,"  said 
Cerizet,  looking  at  the  reflection  of  his  face  in  the 
superb  jewels  contained  in  the  case.  "You  wouldn't 
know  how  to  dispose  of  them,  Mother:  1  leave 
you  the  gold  for  your  share.  As  for  the  rentes  and 
the  house,  they're  not  worth  the  struggle  we  should 
have  to  induce  the  good  man  to  make  a  new  will." 

"Wait  a  bit,  my  boy!"  retorted  La  Cardinal, 
inclined  to  rebel  at  this  somewhat  summary  division 
of  the  spoil,  "we'll  count  the  cash  first" 

"Hush!"  said  Cerizet,  as  if  listening. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  La  Cardinal. 

"Didn't  you  hear  something  moving  below?" 

"I  didn't  hear  nothing,"  replied  the  fishwoman. 

Cerizet  motioned  to  her  to  be  silent,  and  listened 
more  attentively. 

"I  hear  footsteps  on  the  stairs,"  said  he,  a  moment 
later. 

And  he  hastily  replaced  the  jewel-case  in  the  cup- 
board and  tried  to  pull  down  the  sliding  panel. 

While  he  was  wasting  his  strength  in  fruitless 
efforts  the  steps  came  nearer. 

"Yes,  some  one's  coming  up!"  said  La  Cardinal, 
in  dismay.  "Bah!  perhaps  it's  the  madwoman," 
she  added,  clutching  at  a  straw  of  hope;  "they  say 
she  walks  'round  at  nights." 


Wliile  Cerizet  was  turning  the  bolt,  ivhick  worked 
very  smoothly,  La  Cardinal,  pale  and  gasping  for 
breath,  held  the  light ;  but,  O  cruel  disappointment ! 
when  the  cupboard  zvas  opened  nothing  was  to  be 
seen  save  an  empty  space,  which  the  candle  hastily 
thrust  in  by  the  fishvender  lighted  up  to  no  purpose. 

Having  thrust  his  arm  into  the  opening  and  felt 
the  back  and  sides,  he  exclaimed : 


At  all  events, the  madwoman  had  a  key  to  the  room, 
for  a  key  was  inserted  in  the  lock  the  next  minute. 
With  a  rapid  glance,  La  Cardinal  measured  the 
distance  that  separated  her  from  the  door;  would 
she  have  time  to  run  and  throw  the  bolt?  But,  con- 
sidering that  she  would  probably  be  too  late,  she 
hastily  blew  out  the  light,  in  order  to  have  some 
chance  of  escape  under  cover  of  the  darkness. 

Vain  precaution !  The  marplot  who  entered  the 
room  had  a  lighted  candle  in  his  hand. 

When  she  saw  that  she  had  to  do  with  a  little  old 
man  of  mean  aspect,  Madame  Cardinal,  with  fire  in 
her  eye,  rushed  forward  to  meet  the  new-comer  like 
a  lioness  in  danger  of  having  her  little  ones  stolen 
from  her. 

"Calm  yourself,  my  good  woman,"  said  the  old 
man,  with  a  cunning  leer;  "I  have  sent  for  the  police 
and  they'll  be  here  in  a  moment" 

The  word  police  broke  Madame  Cardinal's  legs, 
to  use  a  slang  expression. 

"The  police,  Monsieur!"  she  exclaimed,  greatly 
agitated;  "we  ain't  thieves!" 

"If  1  were  in  your  place  I  wouldn't  wait  for  them, 
all  the  same,"  said  the  old  man;  "they  sometimes 
make  embarrassing  mistakes." 

"Can  I  cut  sticks,  then?"  asked  the  fishwoman 
incredulously. 

20  (305) 


306  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Yes,  when  you've  put  back  anything  that  may 
have  wandered  into  your  pockets,  by  accident." 

"Oh!  kind  sir,  there's  nothing  in  my  hands  or  in 
my  pockets;  I  didn't  come  here  for  no  harm;  I  only 
came  to  take  care  of  my  poor  cherub  of  an  uncle ; 
search  me." 

"Come,  vamoose,  it's  all  right!"  said  the  little 
old  man. 

The  fishwoman  did  not  wait  to  be  told  twice,  but 
went  swiftly  down  the  stairs. 

Cerizet  seemed  much  inclined  to  take  the  same 
course. 

"As  to  you,  Monsieur,  it's  a  different  matter," 
the  old  man  said  to  him ;  "we  must  have  a  little  talk 
together;  but  if  you  are  tractable  everything  can  be 
amicably  arranged." 

Whether  the  effect  of  the  narcotic  had  passed 
away,  or  the  unusual  noise  around  Toupillier's  bed 
had  put  an  end  to  his  sleep, — at  all  events  he  opened 
his  eyes  and  looked  about  with  the  expression  of  a 
man  trying  to  collect  his  thoughts ;  but,  after  a  little, 
seeing  that  his  precious  cupboard  was  open,  his 
emotion  gave  him  strength  to  shout  two  or  three 
times  loud  enough  to  wake  the  whole  house: 
"Thieves!  thieves!" 

"No,  Toupillier,"  said  the  little  old  man,  "you 
haven't  been  robbed;  I  came  in  time,  and  nothing 
has  been  disturbed." 

"Why  don't  you  have  that  beggar  arrested !"  cried 
the  miser,  pointing  to  Cerizet. 

"Monsieur  isn't  a  thief,"  replied  the  old  man; 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  307 

"on  the  contrary,  he's  a  friend  who  came  up  with 
me  to  lend  me  a  hand." 

He  turned  to  Cerizet. 

"I  think,  my  dear  sir,"  he  said,  in  an  undertone, 
"that  we  shall  do  well  to  postpone  the  interview  I 
wish  to  have  with  you.  To-morrow  at  ten  o'clock, 
at  Monsieur  du  Portail's,  in  the  house  adjoining. 
After  what  has  taken  place  to-night,  I  ought  to  warn 
you  that  it  may  be  made  somewhat  unpleasant  for 
you  if  you  don't  keep  this  appointment;  I  should 
find  you  beyond  any  question,  for  I  have  the  honor 
of  knowing  who  you  are;  you  are  the  man  whom 
the  opposition  journals  long  called  'the  courageous 
Cerizet'" 

Despite  the  biting  sarcasm  of  this  reminder,  Ceri- 
zet, finding  that  he  would  not  be  treated  more 
harshly  than  Madame  Cardinal  had  been,  was  only 
too  well  pleased  with  this  conclusion,  and  lost  no 
time  in  taking  to  his  heels  after  promising  to  keep 
the  appointment  punctually. 

The  next  morning  Cerizet  was  on  hand  at  the 
appointed  hour. 

Having  first  been  identified  through  a  wicket,  as 
he  declined. to  give  his  name,  he  was  admitted  to 
the  house  and  immediately  ushered  into  Monsieur 
du  Portail's  study,  where  he  found  that  gentleman 
engaged  in  writing. 

Without  rising,  the  little  old  man  motioned  his 
visitor  to  a  seat,  and  continued  the  letter  he  had 
begun.  After  he  had  sealed  it  with  a  solicitude  as 
to  the  perfect  impression  of  the  seal  which  would 


308  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

lead  one  to  imagine  either  that  he  was  naturally 
very  neat  and  fussy,  or  that  he  had  had  diplomatic 
experience,  Du  Portail  rang  for  Bruno,  his  valet, 
and  said,  as  he  handed  him  the  letter : 

"For  the  justice  of  the  peace  of  this  arrondisse- 
ment" 

He  then  carefully  wiped  the  steel  pen  he  had  been 
using  and  arranged  symmetrically  all  the  articles 
that  lay  in  disorder  about  his  desk;  not  till  all  these 
trifling  details  were  duly  attended  to  did  he  turn  to 
Cerizet 

"You  know  that  we  lost  poor  Monsieur  Toupillier 
last  night?"  he  said. 

"No,  truly,"  replied  Cerizet,  with  the  most  sym- 
pathetic expression  he  could  command;  "you  are 
the  first  to  tell  me  of  it,  Monsieur." 

"You  ought  at  least  to  have  suspected  it;  when 
one  gives  a  dying  man  an  enormous  bowl  of  hot 
wine, — which  had  probably  been  narcotized  in  addi- 
tion, for  the  Perrache  woman  lay  all  night  in  a 
lethargic  state  after  drinking  a  small  glass  of  it, — it 
seems  clear  that  there  is  a  purpose  to  hasten  the 
catastrophe." 

"I  have  no  idea,  Monsieur,"  said  Cerizet,  with 
dignity,  "what  Madame  Cardinal  may  have  given 
her  uncle.  I  have  been  guilty,  no  doubt,  of  the  folly 
of  helping  the  woman  in  the  preservative  care  she 
thought  it  her  duty  to  bestow  on  an  inheritance 
in  which  she  gave  me  to  understand  that  she 
had  vested  rights;  but  as  for  making  an  attempt 
on  the  old  man's  life,  why  I  am  incapable  of  such 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  309 

a  thing  and  no  such  thought  ever  entered  my 
mind." 

"Did  you  write  me  this  letter?"  demanded  Du 
Portail,  abruptly,  taking  a  paper  from  under  a  paper- 
weight of  Bohemian  glass,  and  handing  it  to  his 
interlocutor. 

"This  letter?"  replied  Cerizet,  with  the  hesita- 
tion of  a  man  who  does  not  know  whether  he  had 
better  lie  or  confess. 

"I  am  sure  of  what  I  say,"  continued  Du  Portail ; 
"I  have  a  mania  for  autographs  and  I  have  one  of 
yours,  which  I  added  to  my  collection  when  opposi- 
tion had  raised  you  to  the  exalted  position  of  a  mar- 
tyr; I  have  compared  this  writing  with  it,  and  I  say 
that  you  are  the  man  who  advised  me  yesterday,  by 
this  writing,  of  young  La  Peyrade's  pecuniary  em- 
barrassment at  this  moment" 

"Knowing  that  you  had  with  you  a  Mademoiselle 
de  la  Peyrade,  who  must  be  Theodose's  cousin," 
said  the  denizen  of  Rue  des  Poules,  "I  fancied  that 
I  had  discovered  in  you  the  unknown  protector,  from 
whom  my  friend  has  more  than  once  received  most 
generous  assistance;  as  I  am  very  fond  of  the  poor 
fellow,  I  ventured  in  his  interest — " 

"You  did  well,"  interrupted  Du  Portail.  "I  am 
delighted  to  have  fallen  in  with  one  of  La  Peyrade's 
friends.  Indeed  I  will  not  conceal  from  you  that  it 
was  the  fact  that  you  are  his  friend  that  was  chiefly 
instrumental  in  protecting  you  last  night.  But  what 
do  these  notes  for  twenty-five  thousand  francs  mean  ? 
Is  our  friend  in  a  bad  way?  Is  he  dissipated?" 


310  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"On  the  contrary, "  replied  Cerizet,  "he's  a  down- 
right Puritan.  In  the  exaltation  of  his  piety,  he 
wouldn't  take  any  other  clients,  as  an  advocate,  than 
poor  people.  However,  he's  on  the  point  of  making 
a  wealthy  marriage." 

"Ah!  he's  to  be  married:  to  whom?" 

"1  believe  it's  a  girl  named  Colleville,  daughter  of 
the  mayor's  secretary  of  the  twelfth.  She  has  no 
fortune  in  her  own  right,  but  one  Monsieur  Thuil- 
lier,  her  godfather,  member  of  the  General  Council 
of  the  Seine,  has  promised  to  give  her  a  suitable 
dot." 

"Who  has  managed  the  affair?" 

"La  Peyrade  has  been  very  devoted  to  the  Thuil- 
lier  family :  he  was  introduced  to  them  by  Monsieur 
Dutocq,  clerk  to  the  justice  of  the  peace  of  the  dis- 
trict." 

"But  you  write  me  that  these  notes  are  held  by 
this  Monsieur  Dutocq.  Is  it  some  marriage-brokerage 
business?" 

"There  may  be  something  of  that  sort  in  it,"  re- 
plied Cerizet  "You  know,  Monsieur,  that  such 
transactions  are  common  enough  in  Paris:  even 
ecclesiastics  do  not  disdain  to  take  a  hand  in  them." 

"Has  the  affair  gone  very  far?" 

"Why,  yes,  matters  have  progressed  very  rapidly, 
especially  during  the  last  few  days." 

"Well,  my  dear  sir,  I  rely  upon  you  to  make  it 
fall  through;  I  have  other  plans  for  Theodose, 
another  match  to  suggest  to  him." 

"If  you'll  allow  me!"  replied  Cerizet;  "the  way 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  311 

to  put  an  end  to  his  marriage  is  to  make  it  impossible 
for  him  to  pay  his  debt;  and  I  have  the  honor  to 
remind  you  that  these  notes  of  hand  are  genuine 
obligations.  Monsieur  Dutocq  is  clerk  to  a  magis- 
trate; that  is  to  say,  in  such  matters  it  isn't  easy  to 
get  the  better  of  him." 

"You  must  buy  Monsieur  Dutocq's  claim,"  re- 
joined Du  Portail;  "you  will  find  a  way  to  come  to 
an  understanding  with  him  on  the  subject  In  case 
of  need,  if  Theodose  should  kick  too  violently  against 
my  plans,  the  notes  would  become  a  valuable 
weapon  in  our  hands;  you  must  undertake  to  sue 
them  in  your  own  name,  and  you  will  be  put  to  no 
inconvenience  whatever;  I  will  agree  to  pay  the 
principal  sum  and  costs." 

"You're  a  downright  man  of  business,  Monsieur!" 
said  Cerizet,  "and  it's  really  a  pleasure  to  act  for 
you.  When  you  consider  that  the  time  has  arrived 
to  explain  the  mission  which  you  do  me  the  honor 
to  think  of  entrusting  to  me — " 

"You  were  speaking  just  now,"  rejoined  Du  Por- 
tail, "of  Theodose's  cousin,  Mademoiselle  Lydie  de 
la  Peyrade.  That  young  woman,  who  is  no  longer 
in  her  first  youth,  for  she  is  approaching  thirty,  is 
the  natural  daughter  of  the  famous  Mademoiselle 
Beaumesnil  of  the  Theitre-Francais,  and  La  Pey- 
rade, Commissioner  of  Police  under  the  Empire, 
and  our  friend's  uncle."  (See  Splendors  and  Mis- 
eries.) "Up  to  the  very  moment  of  his  death,  which 
came  very  suddenly  and  left  his  daughter,  whom  he 
loved  to  adoration  and  had  acknowledged,  entirely 


312  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

penniless,  I  was  on  most  intimate  and  friendly 
terms  with  that  excellent  man." 

Well  pleased  to  show  that  he  had  some  knowledge 
of  Du  Portail's  household,  Cerizet  interposed: 

"And  you  have  most  devoutly  discharged  the  obli- 
gations imposed  upon  you  by  that  friendship,  Mon- 
sieur; for  when  you  received  the  interesting  orphan 
under  your  roof,  you  undertook  a  laborious  guar- 
dianship; Mademoiselle  de  la  Peyrade's  state  of 
health,  as  I  am  informed,  requires  most  watchful 
attention  no  less  than  affectionate  care." 

"Yes,"  replied  Du  Portail,  "the  poor  child  was 
so  cruelly  bereaved  by  her  father's  death,  that  her 
mind  was  somewhat  affected;  but  there  has  been  of 
late  a  marked  improvement  in  her  condition,  and  no 
longer  ago  than  yesterday  I  procured  a  consultation 
between  Doctor  Bianchon,  and  the  chief  physicians 
at  Bicetre  and  La  Salpetriere.  These  gentlemen 
are  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that  marriage  and  the 
birth  of  a  child  will  infallibly  lead  to  her  complete 
recovery;  you  understand  that  that  is  too  simple 
and  too  agreeable  a  remedy  not  to  be  tried." 

"In  that  case,"  said  Cerizet,  "Mademoiselle 
Lydie  de  la  Peyrade  is  the  wife  you  have  in  mind 
for  Theodose?" 

"You  have  said  it,"  assented  Du  Portail;  "but  you 
mustn't  think  that  I  should  require  of  our  young 
friend  a  devotion  entirely  without  recompense  if  he 
should  fall  in  with  my  views.  Lydie  is  good  look- 
ing, she  is  talented  and  has  a  charming  disposition, 
and  will  be  able  to  give  her  husband  an  important 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  313 

position  in  public  affairs;  moreover,  she  has  a  pretty 
little  fortune  consisting  of  something  that  her  mother 
left  her  and  all  that  I  possess,  which  I  intend  to 
promise  her  in  the  marriage-contract,  in  default  of 
heirs  of  my  own;  and  lastly,  of  an  inheritance  of 
considerable  value  which  became  hers  only  last 
night." 

"What!"  cried  Cerizet,  "did  old  Toupillier— " 

"By  a  will  in  his  own  handwriting,  which  I  have 
here,  the  miser  makes  her  his  sole  legatee.  So  you 
see  I  am  entitled  to  some  credit  for  not  taking  any 
steps  in  consequence  of  your  escapade  and  Madame 
Cardinal's,  for  it  was  our  property  that  you  proposed 
to  pillage." 

"God  knows, "  said  Cerizet,  "that  I  don't  pretend 
to  excuse  Madame  Cardinal's  vagaries:  and  yet  as 
one  of  the  next  of  kin,  disinherited  for  a  stranger, 
it  seems  to  me  that  she  had  some  claim  to  the  indul- 
gence you  were  good  enough  to  show  her." 

"That's  where  you  are  wrong,"  replied  Du  Por- 
tail,  "for  the  apparent  liberality  of  which  Made- 
moiselle de  la  Peyrade  is  the  object,  is  restitution, 
pure  and  simple." 

"Restitution?"  exclaimed  Cerizet,  curiously. 

"Restitution,"  repeated  Du  Portail,  "and  nothing 
is  more  easily  susceptible  of  proof.  Do  you  remem- 
ber a  diamond  robbery  committed  some  twelve  years 
ago,  of  which  one  of  our  dramatic  celebrities  was  the 
victim?" 

"Yes,  indeed,"  Cerizet  replied;  "I  was  manager 
of  one  of  my  newspapers  at  the  time,  and  I  prepared 


314  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

the  item  in  Paris  News.  But  one  moment !  the  ce- 
lebrity you  speak  of  was  Mademoiselle  Beaumesnil. " 

"Exactly:  Mademoiselle  Lydie  de  la  Peyrade's 
mother." 

"So  this  wretched  Toupillier — but  no,  I  remember, 
the  thief  was  convicted.  His  name  was  Charles 
Crochard.  It  was  whispered  that  he  was  the  natural 
son  of  a  great  personage,  Comte  Granville,  At- 
torney-General at  Paris  after  the  Restoration." 
(See  A  Double  Family.') 

"Well,"  continued  Du  Portail,  "this  is  what 
actually  happened.  The  theft,  you  will  also  remem- 
ber, was  committed  in  a  house  on  Rue  de  Tournon 
occupied  by  Mademoiselle  Beaumesnil.  Charles 
Crochard,  who  was  a  handsome  fellow,  was  on  very 
intimate  terms  there,  as  it  appeared." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Cerizet,  "I  can  see  now  Made- 
moiselle Beaumesnil's  embarrassment  when  she 
testified,  and  her  almost  total  loss  of  voice  when  the 
president  of  the  court  asked  her  age." 

"The  theft  was  committed  boldly  in  broad  day- 
light," continued  Du  Portail,  "and  as  soon  as  Cro- 
chard had  the  jewel-case  in  his  possession  he  went 
off  to  Saint-Sulpice  Church,  where  he  had  appointed 
to  meet  a  confederate.  Having  received  the  dia- 
monds from  him,  and  being  already  provided  with 
a  passport,  this  accomplice  was  to  start  immediately 
for  some  foreign  country.  As  luck  would  have  it, 
Crochard,  on  entering  the  church,  found  himself 
confronted,  not  by  the  man  he  expected,  who  was  a 
few  moments  behind  time,  but  by  a  celebrated 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  315 

detective  who  was  perfectly  well  known  to  him,  as 
this  was  not  the  young  rascal's  first  misunderstand- 
ing with  the  law.  The  absence  of  his  confederate ; 
the  chance  encounter  with  this  officer,  who,  as  he 
imagined,  looked  at  him  in  a  singular  way;  the 
revolt  of  his  conscience;  and,  finally,  a  rapid 
movement  toward  one  of  the  doors  which  the 
detective  happened  by  the  merest  chance  to  make, 
convinced  the  thief  that  he  was  under  surveil- 
lance. In  his  excitement  he  lost  his  head  and 
determined  at  any  price  to  get  rid  of  the  jewel- 
case  which  would  put  him  in  the  position  of  being 
caught  flagrante  delicti,  if,  as  he  did  not  doubt,  he 
were  arrested  when  he  left  the  church,  which  he 
fancied  was  surrounded  by  the  police. — His  eye  fell 
on  Toupillier,  who  was  at  that  time  dispenser  of  holy 
water;  he  went  to  his  stall,  and,  after  making  sure 
that  their  colloquy  was  noticed  by  no  one,  said 
to  him:  'Will  you  keep  this  little  package  for 
me?  It  is  lace.  I  am  going  to  see  a  countess 
near  by  who's  very  poor  pay;  instead  of  settling 
my  bill  she  wanted  to  see  these  articles,  which  are 
the  latest  things  out,  and  asked  me  to  let  her  have 
them  on  credit.  I'd  rather  not  have  them  with  me. 
Be  very  careful,'  he  added,  'not  to  touch  the  paper 
around  the  box,  for  there's  nothing  so  hard  as  to  do 
up  a  bundle  in  the  same  folds.'  " 

"The  bungler!"  cried  Cerizet,  naively,  "all  his 
injunctions  must  have  made  the  other  man  anxious 
to  look." 

"You're   a  clever    moralist,"  said    Du    Portail. 


316  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"An  hour  later,  when  Charles  Crochard,  having 
seen  nothing  to  cause  alarm,  returned  to  get  his 
package,  Toupillier  wasn't  at  his  post.  You  can 
imagine  the  eagerness  with  which  Crochard,  at 
early  mass  on  the  following  day,  accosted  the  dis- 
penser of  holy  water,  whom  he  found  attending  to 
his  duties;  but  night,  as  they  say,  brings  counsel; 
the  good  man  boldly  declared  that  he  had  received 
nothing  from  him  and  didn't  know  what  he  was 
talking  about" 

"And  he  couldn't  attack  him  and  make  a  noise 
about  it!"  remarked  Cerizet,  who  was  not  far  from 
sympathizing  with  a  trick  so  audaciously  played. 

"Of  course  the  theft  was  already  noised  abroad," 
continued  Du  Portail,  "and  Toupillier,  who  was  a 
very  shrewd  fellow,  had  cunningly  calculated  that 
the  thief  could  not  accuse  him  without  betraying 
himself  and  putting  himself  in  a  position  where  he 
would  have  to  restore  the  property.  At  the  trial 
Crochard  didn't  mention  his  misadventure,  and  dur- 
ing the  six  years  that  he  passed  at  the  galleys,  a 
portion  of  his  sentence  of  ten  years  at  hard  labor 
having  been  remitted,  he  never  hinted  to  anyone 
that  he  was  the  victim  of  misplaced  confidence." 

"That  was  true  grit!"  said  Cerizet;  the  narrative 
aroused  his  keenest  interest,  and  he  allowed  himself 
to  regard  the  affair  from  the  standpoint  of  a  connois- 
seur and  artist. 

"In  the  interval,"  continued  Du  Portail,  "Madame 
Beaumesnil  had  died,  leaving  her  daughter  some 
trifling  remnants  of  a  handsome  fortune,  and  notably 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  317 

these  diamonds,  which  were  expressly  mentioned  in 
her  will  and  bequeathed  to  Lydie  if  they  should 
be  recovered. 

"Aha!"  said  Cerizet,  "that  was  hard  on  Toupil- 
lier;  for,  having  to  do  with  a  man  of  your  cali- 
bre—" 

"Filled  with  the  idea  of  vengeance,  Charles  Cro- 
chard's  first  step  on  regaining  his  liberty  was  to 
denounce  Toupillier  as  receiver  of  the  diamonds. 
But  when  he  was  arrested  and  subjected  to  exami- 
nation he  defended  himself  with  such  extraordinary 
simplicity  and  good  humor,  that,  as  there  was  no 
evidence  in  support  of  the  accusation,  the  magistrate 
finally  discharged  him.  He  lost  his  place,  however, 
as  dispenser  of  holy  water,  and  had  great  difficulty 
in  obtaining  permission  to  beg  at  the  door  of  Saint- 
Sulpice.  I  was  entirely  convinced  of  his  guilt; 
notwithstanding  the  magistrate's  decision  I  suc- 
ceeded in  having  a  strict  watch  kept  upon  his  move- 
ments, but  I  relied  most  of  all  upon  myself.  Being 
an  annuitant,  with  considerable  leisure  time,  I 
attached  myself  to  our  thief's  skin,  and  undertook 
the  most  important  enterprise  of  my  whole  life  in 
order  to  unmask  him.  He  lived  at  that  time  on 
Rue  du  Coeur- Volant;  I  succeeded  in  hiring  a  room 
adjoining  his,  and  one  night,  through  a  hole  which 
I  had  with  much  labor  drilled  in  the  wall  that  sepa- 
rated us,  I  saw  our  man  take  the  case  from  a  very 
ingeniously  contrived  hiding-place,  and  pass  well 
nigh  an  hour  gazing  in  ecstasy  at  our  diamonds, 
holding  them  so  that  the  light  would  make  them 


3l8  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

sparkle,  and  pressing  his  lips  passionately  to  them; 
the  man  loved  them  for  themselves  and  had  never 
thought  of  turning  them  into  money." 

"I  understand,"  said  Cerizet;  "a  mania  some- 
thing like  Cardillac's,  the  jeweler  that  somebody 
wrote  a  play  about" 

"That's  about  it,"  said  Du  Portail ;  "the  wretch 
had  fallen  in  love  with  the  jewels;  and  so,  a  few 
days  after,  when  I  went  to  him  and  gave  him  to 
understand  that  I  knew  everything,  he  proposed  to 
me,  in  order  not  to  be  deprived  of  what  he  called 
the  consolation  of  his  life,  that  we  should  let  him 
keep  them  while  he  lived,  and  pledged  himself  in 
his  gratitude  to  make  Mademoiselle  de  la  Peyrade 
his  sole  legatee ;  at  the  same  time  he  informed  me 
that  he  possessed  a  considerable  sum  in  gold,  to 
which  he  was  adding  every  day,  as  well  as  a  piece 
of  real  estate  and  something  in  the  public  funds." 

"If  he  was  acting  in  good  faith,"  said  Cerizet,  "the 
proposition  was  worth  accepting;  the  interest  of  the 
capital  locked  up  in  the  diamonds  was  abundantly 
made  up  by  the  remainder  of  the  inheritance." 

"You  see,  my  dear  man,"  said  Du  Portail,  "that  I 
made  no  mistake  in  trusting  him.  However,  my 
precautions  were  taken ;  I  demanded  that  he  should 
occupy  a  room  in  my  house,  where  I  watched  him 
very  closely;  the  hiding-place  of  which  you  so 
cleverly  discovered  the  secret  was  prepared  under 
my  directions,  but  one  thing  that  you  don't  know  is 
that  the  secret  spring,  at  the  same  time  that  it 
opened  the  iron  cupboard,  rang  a  peal  on  a  very 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  319 

noisy  bell  in  my  apartment,  placed  there  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  me  notice  of  any  attempt  that 
might  be  made  to  carry  off  our  treasure." 

"Poor  Madame  Cardinal !"  cried  Cerizet,  jocosely, 
"how  far  she  was  out  in  her  reckoning!" 

"So  this  is  the  situation,"  said  Du  Portail :  "be- 
cause of  my  interest  in  my  old  friend's  nephew, 
and  also  because,  on  account  of  the  relationship,  this 
marriage  seems  to  me  to  be  an  eminently  suitable 
one,  I  intend  that  Theodose  shall  marry  his  cousin 
and  this  dot.  As  it  is  possible  that  La  Peyrade 
may  be  disinclined  to  fall  in  with  my  plans  on 
account  of  his  cousin's  mental  condition,  I  did  not 
think  best  to  make  the  proposition  directly  to  him. 
You  came  in  my  way,  I  know  you  to  be  clever  and 
cunning,  and  immediately  it  occurred  to  me  to  em- 
ploy you  in  this  little  matrimonial  negotiation. 
Now  you  understand!  you  will  say  to  him  that  you 
know  of  a  wealthy  girl,  who  has  one  slight  draw- 
back, but,  to  balance  it,  a  good  round  dowry ;  you 
will  mention  no  names,  and  will  come  at  once  to  me 
and  tell  me  how  the  suggestion  is  received." 

"Your  confidence,"  rejoined  Cerizet,  "pleases  me 
as  much  as  it  honors  me,  and  I  will  do  my  best  to 
justify  it" 

"We  must  make  no  mistake,"  continued  Du  Por- 
tail ;  "to  refuse  is  likely  to  be  the  first  impulse  of  a 
man  who  is  playing  a  game  elsewhere,  but  we  won't 
admit  that  we're  beaten.  I  don't  readily  abandon 
my  ideas  when  I  think  they  are  wise,  and  even  if 
we  should  have  to  carry  our  zeal  for  La  Peyrade's 


320  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

welfare  so  far  as  to  shut  him  up  at  Clichy,  I  am 
determined  not  to  be  balked  in  an  arrangement  of 
which  I  am  certain  that  he  will  eventually  recognize 
the  wisdom.  And  so,  in  any  event,  you  must  buy 
Monsieur  Dutocq's  claim." 

"At  its  face  value?"  asked  Cerizet 

"Yes,  at  its  face  value  if  you  can  do  no  better; 
we  won't  haggle  over  a  few  thousand  francs;  but, 
when  the  bargain  is  made,  Monsieur  Dutocq  must 
assure  us  of  his  assistance,  or,  at  all  events,  of  his 
neutrality.  Judging  from  what  you  have  told  me 
of  the  other  marriage,  I  think  it  useless  to  remind 
you  that  we  haven't  a  moment  to  lose  before  putting 
the  irons  in  the  fire." 

"1  have  an  appointment  with  La  Peyrade  two 
days  hence,"  observed  Cerizet;  ".we  have  a  little 
matter  of  business  to  settle.  Don't  you  think  it 
would  be  well  to  wait  until  that  meeting,  when  1  can 
bring  this  other  matter  up  incidentally  ?  If  he  kicks, 
that  course  would  be  more  consistent  with  our  dig- 
nity, it  seems  to  me." 

"Very  well,"  said  Du  Portail,  "that's  not  a  long 
delay;  and  remember,  Monsieur,  that  if  you  are 
successful,  instead  of  a  man  entitled  to  hold  you  to 
a  strict  account  of  your  imprudent  connivance  with 
Madame  Cardinal,  you  will  have  in  me  a  debtor, 
ready  to  serve  you  in  any  way,  and  whose  influence 
goes  farther  than  is  generally  supposed." 

After  such  kind  words  the  two  new  friends  could 
not  part  otherwise  than  on  the  best  of  terms  and 
well  content  with  each  other. 


Like  the  Tourniquet  Saint-Jean,  the  Rocker  de 
Cancale,  whither  the  scene  is  now  to  change,  is 
naught  but  a  memory  to-day.  A  wine-shop  with 
pewter-counters  has  taken  the  place  of  that  Temple 
of  Taste,  that  European  sanctuary  which  had  shel- 
tered within  its  walls  all  the  epicures  of  the  Empire 
and  the  Restoration. 

On  the  day  preceding  that  appointed  for  the 
meeting,  La  Peyrade  received  a  line  from  Cerizet  to 
this  effect: 

"To-morrow  at  half-past  six  at  the  Rocker,  lease 
or  no  lease." 

Cerizet  had  occasion  to  see  Dutocq  every  day, 
being  his  copyist,  so  he  notified  him  by  word  of 
mouth ;  but  the  careful  reader  will  remark  the  differ- 
ence in  the  hour  named  to  this  other  guest  "Be  at 
the  Rocker  at  quarter  past  six,"  Cerizet  said  to  him ; 
it  was  evident  that  he  desired  to  have  at  least  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  for  consultation  before  La  Pey- 
rade's  arrival. 

This  quarter  of  an  hour  the  usurer  intended  to 
employ  in  driving  a  bargain  for  Dutocq's  notes,  and 
he  thought  that  the  offer  would  be  likely  to  be  more 
favorably  received  if  made  point-blank,  and  without 
time  for  preparation.  By  giving  the  vender  no  oppor- 
tunity for  reflection  he  might  perhaps  be  induced 
to  loosen  his  hold,  and,  when  he  had  purchased 
21  (321; 


$22  THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

the  claim  at  less  than  its  face  value,  the  man 
from  Rue  des  Poules  could  make  up  his  mind  at  his 
leisure  whether  he  could  safely  appropriate  the  dif- 
ference, or  whether  it  would  be  better  to  account 
honestly  to  Du  Portail  for  the  rebate  he  had  obtained 
for  him.  We  ought  to  say,  however,  that,  aside 
from  any  question  of  self-interest,  Cerizet  would  still 
have  tried  to  gain  a  point  on  his  friend ;  it  was  an 
instinct  with  him  and  a  necessity  of  his  nature;  in 
business  he  had  the  same  horror  of  a  straight  line 
that  amateur  gardeners  in  England  exhibit  inlaying 
out  their  paths. 

Having  still  a  part  of  the  price  of  his  clerkship  to 
pay,  and  being  compelled  to  live  most  sparingly, 
Dutocq's  ordinary  fare  was  not  so  sumptuous  that  a 
dinner  at  the  Rocher  de  Cancale  was  not  an  event 
of  importance  in  the  domestic  economy  of  his  exist- 
ence. He  kept  his  appointment,  therefore,  with  a 
promptness  which  bore  witness  to  the  interest  he 
took  in  the  meeting,  and  at  precisely  a  quarter  past 
six  made  his  appearance  in  the  private  room  of  the 
restaurant  where  Cerizet  was  awaiting  him. 

"It's  ver>  funny, "  said  he,  "that  we  are  once  more 
in  the  same  situation  in  which  our  relations  with 
La  Peyrade  began ;  but  the  place  for  the  meeting 
between  the  three  emperors  is  selected  this  time 
with  more  regard  to  comfort,  and  I  much  prefer  the 
Tilsit  of  Rue  Montorgeuil  to  the  Tilsit  of  Rue  de 
I'Ancienne-Comedie,  that  dreary  Restaurant  Pin- 
son." 

"Faith,"  replied  Cerizet,  "I  doubt  if  the  results 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  323 

obtained  will  justify  the  substitution ;  for,  after  all, 
where  do  our  profits  from  the  formation  of  the 
triumvirate  come  in?" 

"Why,  when  you  come  to  that,"  said  Dutocq, 
"it  was  a  one-sided  bargain.  No  one  can  say  that 
La  Peyrade  lost  much  time,  in  arranging  for  his 
installation  at  the  Tuileries,  if  I  may  permit  myself 
the  pun.  The  rascal  has  gone  ahead  fast,  we  must 
admit." 

"Not  so  fast  but  that  his  marriage  is  not,  at  this 
moment,  terribly  compromised." 

"What's  that!  compromised?" 

"Yes;  I  have  been  employed  to  suggest  a  woman 
to  him  in  an  indirect  way,  and  I  doubt  if  he  has 
any  choice  in  the  matter." 

"What  the  devil,  my  dear  fellow !  do  you  mean  to 
say  that  you're  thinking  of  lending  a  hand  to  an 
opposition  marriage,  when  we  have  a  mortgage  on 
the  other?" 

"My  friend,  a  man  can't  always  control  circum- 
stances; I  saw  from  the  way  things  were  working, 
that  the  one  we  had  a  hand  in  arranging  was  bound 
to  go  by  the  board,  so  I  have  tried  to  get  a  pick- 
ing out  of  the  new  negotiations." 

"Ah!  so  this  Theodose  is  going  to  get  away  from 
us?  Who's  the  new  one?  is  there  a  fortune?" 

"The  dot  is  very  fair,  quite  equal  to  Mademoi- 
selle Colleville's." 

"Then  I  snap  my  fingers  at  him;  La  Peyrade 
signed  the  notes  and  he  shall  pay  them." 

"He  shall  pay,    he  shall   pay; — that's  just  the 


324  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

question.  You're  no  business  man,  no  more  is 
Theodose;  he  may  take  it  into  his  head  to  dispute 
the  notes.  How  do  you  know  that  when  their  ori- 
gin is  disclosed,  and  the  Thuillier  marriage  falls 
through,  the  court  won't  declare  them  void  for  lack 
of  consideration  ?  As  for  myself  I  can  snap  my  fin- 
gers at  the  dispute:  1  have  no  concern  in  it,  and 
besides  I  have  taken  rny  precautions;  but  you're 
clerk  to  a  justice  of  the  peace — don't  you  catch  a 
glimpse  of  a  crow  to  pluck  with  the  chancellor's 
office  as  a  result  of  such  a  lawsuit?" 

"It  seems  to  me,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Dutocq, 
with  the  testy  air  of  a  man  who  finds  himself  con- 
fronted by  an  argument  he  can  not  answer,  "it 
seems  to  me  that  you  have  a  passion  for  stirring 
things  up  and  meddling. — " 

"I  tell  you,"  retorted  Cerizet,  "that  this  affair 
sought  me  out,  and  I  saw  so  plainly  at  the  outset  that 
it  was  hopeless  to  struggle  against  the  evil  influ- 
ences that  are  at  work  against  us,  that  1  made  up  my 
mind  to  save  myself  by  a  sacrifice." 

"What  sort  of  a  sacrifice,  may  I  ask?" 

"Parbleu!  I  sold  my  claim,  leaving  to  those  who 
bought  it  the  pleasure  of  arranging  with  Monsieur 
1'Avocat" 

"But  who  bought  it?" 

"Who  do  you  suppose  would  have  put  themselves 
in  my  shoes,  if  not  the  people  who  have  enough  in- 
terest in  bringing  about  the  other  marriage  to  try 
and  force  Monsieur  Theodose  into  it  even  by  shut- 
ting him  up?" 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  325 

"Then  my  notes  are  equally  necessary  to  them  ?" 

"No  doubt,  but  1  didn't  want  to  dispose  of  them 
without  consulting  you." 

"Well,  what  do  they  offer?" 

"Bless  me !  just  what  I  accepted  myself ;  knowing 
better  than  you  the  danger  of  the  competition  I 
decided  to  sell  out  on  unfavorable  terms." 

"What  were  the  terms?" 

"1  let  the  notes  go  for  fifteen  thousand." 

"Nonsense!"  said  Dutocq,  with  a  shrug:  "it's 
very  evident  that  you  expect  to  make  yourself  whole 
out  of  the  brokerage  of  the  affair,  which,  for  all 
I  know,  may  be  a  scheme  concocted  by  La  Peyrade 
and  yourself." 

"You  don't  mince  words,  old  fellow,  at  all 
events;  an  infamous  idea  comes  into  your  brain, 
and  you  eject  it  with  the  most  delightful  indif- 
ference. Luckily  you'll  hear  me  broach  the  subject 
to  Theodose  in  a  moment,  and  you  can  judge 
from  his  manner  how  much  connivance  there  is 
between  us." 

"All  right!"  said  Dutocq,  "I  withdraw  my  insinu- 
ation; but  upon  my  word  your  employers  are 
regular  pirates;  it's  wicked  to  slaughter  folks  so; 
another  blow,  and  I  haven't  like  you  a  reserve  that 
1  can  fall  back  on." 

"My  poor  fellow,  this  is  how  I  argued :  'That  good 
Dutocq  is  hard  put  to  it  to  pay  the  balance  due  on 
his  clerkship;  here's  a  way  for  him  to  settle  it  at 
one  stroke;  the  result  proves  how  much  uncer- 
tainty there  is  in  the  La  Peyrade  compromise,  they 


326  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

offer  him  spot-cash,  and  so  perhaps  it's  not  a  very 
bad  bargain  for  him.'  " 

"Agreed;  but  to  lose  the  two-fifths!" 

"Look  here!"  said  Cerizet,  "you  said  something 
just  now  about  a  reserve;  I  can  see  a  possible  way 
of  starting  one  for  you ;  and  if  you  choose  to  under- 
take to  lead  an  attack  on  the  Colleville  affair  and 
take  the  reverse  of  the  part  you've  played  in  it  thus 
far,  I  don't  despair  of  getting  a  round  twenty  thous- 
and out  of  it  for  you." 

"Then  you  think  this  new  arrangement  won't  be 
satisfactory  to  La  Peyrade?  that  he'll  fight  against 
it  ?  Is  it  some  heiress  that  the  rascal's  already  taken 
earnest-money  from?" 

"All  I  can  tell  you  is  that  we  must  wait  for  the 
drawing  to  know  the  result" 

"I  ask  nothing  better  than  to  draw  as  you  say, 
and  to  make  myself  unpleasant  to  La  Peyrade ;  but 
five  thousand  francs;  think  of  it!  it's  too  much  to 
lose!" 

At  that  moment  the  door  opened  and  a  waiter  in- 
troduced the  expected  guest 

"You  can  serve  the  dinner,"  said  Cerizet  to  the 
waiter;  "we  expect  no  one  else." 

It  was  easy  to  see  that  Theodose  was  beginning 
to  take  his  flight  toward  higher  social  spheres. 
Elegance  in  dress  had  become  his  constant  thought. 
He  was  in  full  evening  dress,  dress-coat  and  patent- 
leathers,  while  his  partners  received  him  in  red- 
ingote  and  muddy  boots. 

"Messeigneurs,"  said  he,  "I  fear  that  I'm  a  little 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  327 

late ;  but  that  devil  of  a  Thuillier,  with  the  pamphlet 
I'm  putting  together  for  him,  is  the  most  unbearable 
creature.  I  was  unfortunate  enough  to  arrange  with 
him  that  we  should  look  over  the  proofs  together ;  at 
every  new  paragraph  we  have  a  struggle.  'The 
public  won't  understand  what  I  can't  understand,' 
he  always  says :  'I'm  no  literary  man,  but  I'm  a 
practical  man.'  And  I  have  to  fight  over  every  sen- 
tence. I  thought  the  session  we've  just  had  would 
never  end." 

"What  do  you  expect,  my  dear  fellow?"  said 
Dutocq;  "when  one  wants  to  get  ahead  he  must 
have  the  courage  to  make  some  sacrifice;  when 
you're  safely  married  you  can  hold  up  your 
head." 

"Ah  yes!"  said  La  Peyrade  with  a  sigh,  "I  will 
hold  it  up  too;  for,  ever  since  the  time  you  made 
me  eat  the  bread  of  anguish  I  have  been  getting 
terribly  weary." 

"Cerizet's  going  to  regale  us  with  succulent  food 
to-day,"  said  Dutocq. 

And  at  first  they  turned  their  attention  exclusively 
to  the  menu  which  the  principal  tenant  that-was-to- 
be,  with  his  memories  of  happier  days,  had  ordered. 
As  is  always  the  case  at  political  dinners  where 
every  guest,  although  his  mind  is  full  of  the  burning 
questions  of  the  day,  makes  a  point  of  not  mention- 
ing them  for  fear  of  relinquishing  his  advantages  by 
seeming  too  eager,  the  conversation  for  a  long  while 
turned  upon  none  but  matters  of  general  interest, 
and  not  until  the  dessert  appeared  did  Cerizet  make 


328  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

up  his  mind  to  ask  La  Peyrade  what  had  been 
decided  regarding  the  terms  of  the  lease. 

"Nothing,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  La  Peyrade. 

"What!  nothing?  Why,  I  certainly  gave  you 
time  enough  to  come  to  some  decision — " 

"And  something  is  decided,  namely,  that  there 
will  be  no  principal  tenant;  Mademoiselle  Brigitte 
proposes  to  manage  the  building  herself." 

"That's  a  different  matter,"  said  Cerizet  with  an 
affected  air.  "After  the  agreement  you  made  with 
me  I  confess  that  I  was  far  from  expecting  such  a 
result" 

"What  could  I  do,  my  dear  man?  I  promised  sub- 
ject to  ratification,  and  I  had  no  way  of  giving  any 
different  turn  to  the  affair.  In  her  capacity  of  mas- 
terful woman  and  specimen  of  perpetual  movement, 
Mademoiselle  Brigitte  reflected  that  she  could  herself 
undertake  the  management  of  the  property  as  well 
as  not,  and  thus  put  in  her  own  pocket  the  profits 
you  calculated  on.  I  wasted  my  breath  talking  to  her 
about  the  fuss  and  worry  she  would  subject  herself 
to;  'Bah!  bah!'  she  retorted,  'it  will  keep  my  blood 
moving  and  be  an  excellent  thing  for  my  health.'  " 

"Why  it's  pitiful !"  exclaimed  Cerizet;  "the  poor 
woman  won't  know  where  to  begin;  she  has  no  idea 
what  an  unoccupied  building  is,  and  that  she's  got 
to  find  tenants  for  it  from  top  to  bottom." 

"1  gave  her  the  benefit  of  all  those  arguments," 
rejoined  La  Peyrade,  "but  I  didn't  even  shake  her 
resolution.  There  you  are,  my  dear  democrats; 
you  brewed  the  Revolution  of  '89;  you  fancied  that 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  329 

you  were  making  an  excellent  speculation  in 
dethroning  the  noble  by  the  bourgeois,  and  you 
simply  put  yourselves  in  the  gutter.  This  sounds 
like  a  paradox,  but  it  wasn't  the  peasant  who  was 
made  to  pay  taxes  and  work  on  the  roads  at  plea- 
sure, it  was  the  noble.  The  aristocracy,  solicitous 
for  their  dignity,  denied  themselves  a  multitude  of 
plebeian  accomplishments,  even  that  of  learning  to 
write,  and  so  were  in  fact  dependent  upon  the  whole 
mass  of  underlings  whom  they  were  obliged  to  em- 
ploy and  to  trust  in  three-fourths  of  the  acts  of  their 
lives.  That  was  the  reign  of  intendants,  of  intelli- 
gent and  cunning  clerks,  through  whose  hands  all 
the  affairs  of  the  great  families  passed,  and  who, 
although  they  did  not  deserve  the  shocking  reputa- 
tion they  acquired  by  force  of  circumstances,  grew 
rich  simply  by  the  parings  of  the  vast  fortunes  they 
administered.  Now  we  have  a  host  of  utilitarian 
aphorisms:  'One  is  never  so  well  served  as  by 
himself.  There  is  no  shame  in  attending  to  one's 
own  affairs,'  and  a  thousand  other  bourgeois  max- 
ims, which,  by  making  action  every  man's  proper 
sphere,  have  done  away  with  the  employment  of 
middle-men.  Why  shouldn't  Mademoiselle  Brigitte 
Thuillier  undertake  the  management  of  her  own 
property,  when  dukes  and  peers  of  France  go  in 
person  to  the  Bourse,  when  they  negotiate  their 
own  leases,  read  over  their  contracts  themselves 
before  signing  them  and  dispute  about  their  pro- 
visions at  the  notary's  office,  whom  they  used  in 
old  days  disdainfully  to  call  a  scrivener?" 


330  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

During  La  Peyrade's  harangue  Cerizet  had  had 
time  to  recover  from  the  blow  he  had  received  full 
in  the  face,  and  he  now  said,  carelessly,  paving  the 
way  for  a  transition  to  the  other  subject  he  had 
undertaken  to  negotiate : 

"All  that  you  say  is  very  clever,  my  dear  boy; 
but  the  thing  that  proves  our  setback  most  clearly 
in  my  eyes  is  that  you  are  not  on  so  influential  a 
footing  with  Mademoiselle  Thuillier  as  you  would 
have  us  believe.  She  escapes  you  handily  at  need, 
and  I  begin  to  doubt  whether  the  marriage  is  so  sure 
to  take  place  as  Dutocq  and  I  have  been  glad  to 
think  it  was." 

"Of  course,"  replied  La  Peyrade,  "there  is  still 
much  to  be  done  to  complete  our  task,  but  1  think 
it's  well  advanced." 

"Well, I  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  you've  lost 
ground,  and  it's  very  easy  to  see  why;  you've 
done  your  people  an  enormous  favor,  and  they'll 
never  forgive  you." 

"Well,  we  shall  see,"  said  La  Peyrade;  "I  still 
have  more  than  one  hold  on  them." 

"No,  indeed  you  haven't;  you  thought  you  were 
doing  marvels  by  heaping  favors  on  them,  and  now 
that  they've  shaken  clear  of  you  they'll  make  no 
account  of  you ;  that's  the  way  the  human  heart  is 
made,  especially  the  bourgeois  heart;  it  isn't,  you 
see,  because  I  get  the  reflex  action  of  this  failure 
that  I  feel  you're  going  to  meet  with,  but,  if  1  were 
you,  I  wouldn't  feel  as  if  1  were  on  firm  ground,  and 
if  I  saw  any  chance  to  turn — " 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  331 

"What!  because  I  couldn't  get  a  lease  for  you,  am 
1  to  throw  the  helve  after  the  axe?" 

"I  say  again,"  retorted  Cerizet,  "that  I  don't  look 
at  the  matter  with  interested  eyes;  but,  as  I  have 
no  doubt  that  you  acted  as  a  true  friend  should  and 
did  your  utmost  to  get  what  I  wanted,  I  look  upon 
the  way  you  were  shown  the  door  as  a  very  ominous 
symptom;  indeed  it  prompts  me  to  tell  you  some- 
thing I  shouldn't  otherwise  have  mentioned,  because 
I  find  that  when  you  have  an  end  in  view  you 
should  go  straight  on  without  looking  behind  or  in 
front,  and  without  allowing  any  other  aspiration  to 
turn  you  aside." 

"Come,  come!"  said  La  Peyrade,  "What does  all 
this  talk  mean?  What  have  you  to  propose  to  me? 
What  will  it  cost?" 

"My  dear  fellow,"  rejoined  Cerizet,  without  heed- 
ing the  impertinence,  "you  yourself  can  fix  a  value 
•on  such  a  find  as  a  young  woman,  well-educated, 
good-looking,  talented,  with  a  dowry  at  least  equal 
to  Celeste's,  and  which  she  will  have  at  first  hand ; 
also,  a  hundred  thousand  francs  in  diamonds,  like 
Mademoiselle  Georges  on  provincial  play-bills;  and 
lastly — and  this  ought  above  all  things  to  make  an 
impression  on  a  man  of  ambitious  temperament — 
power  to  dispose  of  political  preferment  in  her  hus- 
band's favor." 

"And  you  have  this  treasure  in  your  hand?" 
demanded  La  Peyrade,  incredulously. 

"Better  than  that;  I  am  authorized  to  offer  it  to  you, 
3  had  almost  said  that  I  have  it  in  charge  to  do  so." 


332  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"My  friend,  you're  laughing  at  me,  and  unless  I 
assume  that  this  phoenix  has  some  fearful  defect  that 
would  vitiate  any  contract — " 

"I  agree,"  said  Cerizet,  "that  there  is  a  trifling 
matter  to  be  taken  into  account;  not  on  the  part  of 
the  family,  for,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  young  woman 
hasn't  any." 

"Ah !"  said  La  Peyrade,  "a  natural  child,— well  ?" 

"Well,  she's  been  a  virgin  now  for  some  time; 
she  may  perhaps  be  twenty-nine  years  old;  but 
there's  nothing  so  easy  as  to  make  a  young  widow 
out  of  an  aging  girl,  in  imagination." 

"And  is  that  all  the  poison  there  is?" 

"Yes,  all  that  is  irreparable." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?  Has  rhinoplasty 
to  be  tried?" 

As  addressed  to  Cerizet  this  question  had  an 
aggressive  tone  which  indeed  had  been  noticeably 
present  in  the  advocate's  conversation  since  the 
dinner  began.  But  it  did  not  enter  into  the  nego- 
tiator's role  to  seem  to  notice  it 

"No,"  he  replied,  "our  nose  is  as  perfect  as  our 
foot  and  our  figure,  but  we  may  be  a  little  inclined 
to  hysteria." 

"Good !"  exclaimed  La  Peyrade,  "and  as  it's  only 
a  step  from  hysteria  to  mental  alienation — " 

"Well,  yes,"  said  Cerizet  hastily,  "sorrow  has 
left  a  slight  derangement  in  our  brain;  but  the  doc- 
tors are  unanimous  in  their  diagnosis,  that  with 
the  first  child  every  trace  of  this  little  disturbance 
of  mind  will  disappear." 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  333 

"I  consider  the  doctors  quite  infallible,"  retorted 
the  advocate,  "but,  in  the  face  of  all  your  discour- 
agement, you  will  permit  me,  my  friend,  to  perse- 
vere with  Mademoiselle  Colleville.  It  is  an  ab- 
surd thing  to  confess,  perhaps,  but  it  is  a  fact 
that  I  am  gradually  falling  in  love  with  the  little 
creature.  It  isn't  that  her  beauty  is  so  resplendent, 
or  that  the  splendor  of  her  dowry  dazzles  me,  but  I 
find  in  the  child  perfect  sincerity  combined  with  a 
great  supply  of  common  sense,  and, — and  this  is 
the  decisive  consideration  in  my  mind — her  sincere 
and  deep-rooted  piety  has  a  great  attraction  for  me; 
I  think  a  husband  will  be  happy  with  her." 

"Yes,"  said  Cerizet,  who,  having  been  an  actor 
in  his  day,  might  well  have  this  fleeting  reminis- 
cence of  Moliere: 

"Your  hymen  will  be  steeped  in  pleasures  and  de- 
lights." 

The  allusion  to  Tartuffe  was  keenly  felt  by  La 
Peyrade,  who  at  once  took  it  up  and  added : 

"By  contact  with  her  innocence,  I  shall  throw 
off  the  infection  of  the  base  society  in  which  I  have 
lived  too  long." 

"And  you  will  pay  your  notes,"  retorted  Cerizet, 
"which  I  advise  you  to  do  with  the  least  possible 
delay,  for  Dutocq  here  just  informed  me  that  he 
shouldn't  be  at  all  sorry  to  see  the  color  of  your 
money  at  last." 

"I?  not  at  all,"  interposed  Dutocq;  "on  the  con- 
trary 1  consider  that  our  friend  has  delayed  no  longer 
than  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  do." 


334  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Well,  for  my  part,"  said  La  Peyrade,  "I  am  of 
Cerizet's  opinion,  and  I  hold  that  the  less  just  a  debt 
is,  and  on  that  account  the  more  debatable  and 
shadowy,  the  more  haste  one  should  be  in  to  be  free 
from  it." 

"But  you  take  a  very  bitter  tone,  my  dear  La 
Peyrade!"  said  Dutocq. 

La  Peyrade  drew  a  wallet  from  his  pocket 

"Have  you  your  notes  here,  Dutocq?"  said  he. 

"Faith,  no,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  the  clerk;  "I 
don't  carry  them  about  me  because  they're  in  Ceri- 
zet's hands." 

"Well,"  said  the  advocate  rising,  "if  you  choose 
to  call  on  me,  I  pay  on  demand;  Cerizet  can  give 
you  some  information  on  that  subject." 

"What!  you  are  going  to  leave  us  before  we  have 
our  coffee?"  said  Cerizet  in  the  utmost  astonish- 
ment 

"Yes;  at  eight  o'clock  I  have  an  appointment 
before  an  arbitrator;  besides,  we've  said  what  we 
had  to  say;  you  haven't  your  lease,  but  you  have 
your  twenty-five  thousand  francs,  and  Dutocq's 
are  ready  for  him  when  he  pleases  to  apply  to  my 
cash-box;  so  I  see  no  reason  why  i  shouldn't  go 
about  my  business  and  bid  you  a  most  cordial  good- 
evening. " 

"Aha!"  said  Cerizet,  as  La  Peyrade  left  the 
room,  "a  rupture!" 

"And  emphasized  with  the  utmost  care,"  observed 
Dutocq.  "What  an  air  he  put  on  when  he  pulled 
out  his  wallet!" 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  335 

"But  where  the  devil  can  he  have  got  the  money  ?" 
asked  the  usurer. 

"In  the  same  place,  no  doubt,"  retorted  the  clerk 
ironically,  "where  he  got  what  he  needed  to  take  up 
the  notes  you  were  obliged  to  part  with  at  such  an 
enormous  reduction." 

"My  dear  Dutocq,"  said  Cerizet,  "I'll  explain  to 
you  just  how  the  insolent  cur  cleared  his  slate  with 
me,  and  you'll  see  if  he  didn't,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
steal  fifteen  thousand  francs  from  me." 

"That  may  be;  but  you,  my  genial  copyist,  un- 
dertook to  take  ten  thousand  from  me." 

"No  indeed;  I  was  actually  employed  to  buy  up 
your  claim,  and  my  offer  had  risen  to  twenty  thous- 
and when  the  fine  Theodose  came  in." 

"Well,"  said  the  clerk,  "when  we  leave  here 
we'll  go  to  your  place,  and  you'll  give  me  the  notes, 
because  you  understand  that  at  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian hour  to-morrow  morning  I  propose  to  call  on 
what  our  gentleman  calls  his  cash  box.  I  don't 
want  his  paying  humor  to  grow  cold." 

"And  you  will  act  very  wisely,  for  I  promise  you 
that  it  won't  be  long  before  there'll  be  a  blow-up  in 
his  career." 

"Do  you  mean  that  there's  any  truth  in  this  tale 
of  a  madwoman  that  you  want  him  to  marry  ?  I 
must  confess  that  if  I  were  in  his  place,  with  affairs 
going  on  as  swimmingly  as  they  are  with  him,  I 
wouldn't  have  wasted  much  time  on  the  matter 
either ;  the  Ninas  and  Ophelias  are  very  interesting 
on  the  stage,  but  in  a  family — " 


336  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"In  a  family,  when  they  bring  with  them  a  hand- 
some dowry,  you're  their  guardian,"  rejoined  Ceri- 
zet  sententiously,  "and  you  may  say  that  you  have 
the  fortune  and  not  the  wife." 

"True,"  said  Dutocq,  "that's  one  way  to  look  at 
it" 

"If  you  don't  object,"  said  Cerizet,  "we'll  go 
somewhere  else  for  our  coffee.  This  dinner  has 
turned  out  so  badly,  that  I'm  in  a  hurry  to  get  out 
of  this  closet, — there's  no  air  here  either." 

He  summoned  the  waiter. 

"The  bill!"  said  he. 

"Why;  it's  paid,  m'sieu." 

"Paid!  who  paid  it?" 

"The  gentleman  who  just  went  out" 

"Why  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing!"  cried  Cer- 
izet; "I  order  the  dinner  and  you  let  a  stranger  pay 
for  it!" 

"1  didn't  do  it,  m'sieu,"  said  the  waiter;  "the  gen- 
tleman paid  the  cashier ;  it's  likely  she  thought  it  was 
all  understood ;  people  aren't  very  common  who  go  out 
of  their  way  to  pay  bills  that  don't  belong  to  them. " 

"All  right,  you  can  go!"  said  Cerizet,  dismissing 
him. 

"Don't  the  gentlemen  take  coffee?"  he  asked 
before  leaving  the  room;  "it's  paid  for." 

"That's  just  why  we  won't  take  it,"  snarled 
Cerizet  "Upon  my  word  it  is  past  belief  that  such 
blunders  should  be  made  in  a  house  like  this. — Can 
you  imagine  such  cheek?"  he  asked  when  the 
waiter  had  gone. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  337 

"Pshaw!"  said  Dutocq  taking  up  his  hat,  "it  is  a 
regular  school-boy's  trick ;  he  wants  to  show  that  he 
has  money;  anybody  can  see  he  isn't  used  to  it." 

"No,  no,  not  at  all,"  said  Cerizet,  "it's  one  way 
of  giving  point  to  the  rupture.  It's  as  if  he  said : 
'I  don't  want  to  be  indebted  to  you  even  for  a  din- 
ner.'" 

"You  see,  my  dear  fellow,"  suggested  Dutocq  as 
they  went  down  stairs,  "this  banquet  was  given  to 
celebrate  your  enthronement  as  principal  tenant 
He  failed  to  get  the  lease  for  you.  I  can  understand 
that  his  conscience  may  have  troubled  him  at  the 
thought  of  letting  you  pay  for  the  dinner,  which  thus 
became,  like  my  notes,  an  obligation  without  con- 
sideration." 

Cerizet  let  this  malicious  explanation  pass  with- 
out comment.  They  had  reached  the  cashier's  desk, 
presided  over  by  the  lady  who  had  allowed  herself 
to  be  paid  unseasonably,  and  in  the  interest  of  his 
dignity  the  usurer  felt  called  upon  to  make  a  scene. 


22 


The  boon-companions  at  last  left  the  house 
together,  and  the  man  from  Rue  des  Poules  took  his 
employer  to  a  low  wine-shop  on  Passage  du  Saumon 
for  their  coffee. 

There  the  host  who  had  come  off  so  cheaply 
recovered  his  good  humor;  he  was  iike  a  stranded 
fish  thrown  back  into  the  water;  having  reached 
that  stage  of  degradation  at  which  a  man  feels  ill  at 
ease  in  places  frequented  by  respectable  people, 
Cerizet  felt  something  like  ecstasy  when  he  found 
himself  once  more  in  his  element  in  this  resort, 
where  a  noisy  game  of  pool  was  in  progress  for  the 
benefit  of  one  of  the  conquerors  of  the  Bastile. 

He  had  a  reputation  as  a  skilful  billiardist  in  the 
establishment  and  was  urged  to  take  part  in  the 
game  that  was  already  begun.  In  technical  lan- 
guage, he  bought  a  ball ;  that  is  to  say  one  of  the 
players  sold  him  his  turn  and  his  chances.  Dutocq 
availed  himself  of  this  arrangement  to  take  to  his 
heels,  ostensibly  to  go  and  inquire  for  a  sick  friend. 

Soon  after,  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  with  a  pipe 
between  his  teeth,  Cerizet  had  just  achieved  one 
of  those  master-strokes  which  call  forth  frenzied 
applause  from  the  galleries,  when  the  triumphant 
glance  which  he  cast  about  met  with  a  terrible  kill- 
joy. 

Among  the  audience  was  Du  Portail,  gazing  at 

(339) 


340  THE  PETTY -BOURGEOIS 

him  over  the  head  of  his  cane  on  which  his  chin 
was  resting. 

A  painful  flush  overspread  Cerizet's  cheeks,  and 
he  hesitated  whether  he  should  recognize  and  salute 
the  annuitant,  who  seemed  so  out  of  place  there. 
Without  making  up  his  mind  what  course  to  adopt 
touching  this  embarrassing  meeting  he  was  much 
preoccupied;  his  play  showed  the  effect  of  his  pre- 
occupation, and  before  long  an  ill-judged  stroke  put 
him  out  of  the  game. 

While  he  was  putting  on  his  coat  in  exceeding  ill- 
humor,  Du  Portail  rose  and  brushed  by  him  on  his 
way  out 

"Rue  Montmartre,  at  the  end  of  the  passage,"  he 
said  in  a  low  tone. 

When  they  met,  Cerizet  had  the  bad  taste  to  try 
and  explain  the  unseemly  plight  in  which  he  had 
been  surprised. 

"Why,  in  order  too  see  you  there,  I  must  have 
been  there  myself,"  said  Du  Portail. 

"True,"  replied  the  usurer,  "I  was  considerably 
astonished  to  meet  a  peaceful  resident  of  the  Quar- 
tier  Saint-Sulpice  in  that  place." 

"Which  goes  to  prove,"  retorted  the  annuitant  in 
a  tone  which  nipped  in  the  bud  all  hope  of  explana- 
tion and  all  inquisitiveness,  "that  I  am  accustomed 
to  go  everywhere,  and  that  I  have  a  star  that  guides 
me  to  the  path  of  people  I  wish  to  meet;  I  was  think- 
ing of  you  when  you  came  in.  Well,  what  have  you 
done?" 

"Nothing  worth  doing,"  said  Cerizet     "After 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  341 

playing  me  a  trick  he  ought  to  be  hanged  for,  and 
cheating  me  out  of  a  magnificent  business  opportu- 
nity, our  man  rejected  the  proposal  with  the  most 
supreme  contempt.  There's  no  hope  of  getting  Du- 
tocq's  notes;  La  Peyrade  appeared  to  be  in  funds, 
for  he  wanted  to  take  up  the  notes  on  the  spot,  and 
he  will  certainly  pay  them  off  to-morrow  morning." 

"Then  he  looks  upon  his  marriage  with  this 
Mademoiselle  Colleville  as  settled?" 

"Not  only  does  he  look  upon  it  as  settled  but  he 
undertakes  now  to  make  us  believe  that  it's  an  affair 
of  the  heart  He  spouted  a  long  tirade  to  persuade 
me  that  he's  really  in  love." 

"Very  well!"  said  Du  Portail,  taking  occasion  to 
show  that  he  also  could  talk  the  dialect  of  the  wine- 
shops,— "stop  the  expense.11 — Which  means:  'Don't 
do  anything  more  about  it' — "I'll  undertake  to 
checkmate  monsieur.  But  do  you  come  and  see 
me  to-morrow  to  post  me  as  to  the  family  he 
proposes  to  enter.  You  have  failed  in  one  affair ; 
but  never  fear :  with  me  others  are  sure  to  turn  up. " 

With  that  he  signaled  to  the  driver  of  an  empty 
cab  that  was  passing,  and  bestowing  a  friendly  but 
patronizing  nod  upon  Cerizet,  he  gave  the  address 
on  Rue  Honore-Chevalier. 

As  he  went  down  Rue  Montmartre  on  his  way  back 
to  the  Estrapade  quarter,  Cerizet  tortured  his  brain 
trying  to  guess  at  the  identity  of  this  little  old  man, 
of  few  words,  imperious  in  his  suggestions,  who  had 
the  appearance  of  casting  grappling-irons  at  people 
when  he  spoke  to  them,  and  who  went  so  far  from 


342  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

home  to  pass  his  evening  in  a  resort  where,  in  view 
of  the  air  of  distinction  which  characterized  his 
whole  person,  he  was  certainly  most  tremendously 
out  of  place. 

When  he  reached  the  neighborhood  of  the  Market, 
Cerizet  had  not  solved  the  problem;  but  at  that 
moment  his  attention  was  rudely  withdrawn  from  it 
by  a  mighty  blow  on  the  back. 

Turning  quickly  about  he  found  himself  face  to 
face  with  Madame  Cardinal,  whom  he  might  not 
unnaturally  have  expected  to  meet  with  in  that 
region,  which  she  visited  every  morning  to  replenish 
her  stock  in  trade. 

Since  the  memorable  evening  on  Rue  Honore- 
Chevalier,  the  worthy  woman,  notwithstanding  the 
clemency  with  which  she  had  been  treated,  had  not 
deemed  it  prudent  to  make  other  than  very  brief 
appearances  at  her  domicile,  and  for  two  days  past 
she  had  been  drowning  her  chagrin  over  her  misad- 
venture among  the  gin-shops,  known  as  licensed 
comforters. 

Her  speech  was  thick  and  her    face    inflamed. 

"Well,  papa,"  she  said  to  Cerizet,  "how  did  you 
come  off  with  the  little  old  fellow?" 

"In  a  few  words,"  replied  the  usurer,  "I  con- 
vinced him  that  there  was  nothing  between  him 
and  me  but  a  misunderstanding.  In  the  whole  busi- 
ness, my  poor  Madame  Cardinal,  you  acted  with 
really  unpardonable  levity;  tell  me,  when  you  asked 
me  to  help  you  to  make  sure  of  your  uncle's  prop- 
erty, did  you  know  that  he  had  a  natural  daughter 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  343 

to  whom  he  had  long  before  declared  his  purpose  of 
leaving  everything  by  will  ?  The  little  old  man 
who  interrupted  you  in  your  absurd  attempt  to 
anticipate  your  inheritance  was  no  other  than  the 
legatee's  guardian." 

"Ah!  so  he's  a  guardian!"  said  La  Cardinal; 
"well,  guardians  are  polite  folks.  To  talk  to  a 
woman  as  old  as  me  about  sending  for  the  police, 
because  she  wanted  to  find  out  whether  her  uncle 
was  leaving  anything!  If  that  ain't  horrible, 
enough  to  sicken  you!" 

"Come,  come!"  said  Cerizet,  "you  mustn't  com- 
plain, Mere  Cardinal ;  you  got  out  of  it  mighty  well. " 

"Well,  what  about  you,  who  picked  the  locks  and 
wanted  to  fasten  on  to  the  diamonds,  under  cover  of 
marrying  my  daughter !  Do  you  suppose  my  daugh- 
ter wants  any  part  of  you  ?  a  lawful  daughter  too ! 
'Mother,'  says  she,  'I'll  never  give  my  heart  to  a 
man  with  a  nose  like  that!'  " 

"So  you've  found  your  daughter,  have  you?" 

"No  longer  ago  than  last  night;  she's  dropped  her 
drunken  player,  and  I  can  flatter  myself  she's  in  a 
superb  position,  eating  off  o'  silver-piate,  with  her 
carriage  by  the  month,  and  made  much  of  by  a  law- 
yer who'd  marry  her  to-morrow  only  he's  got  to 
wait  till  his  father  and  mother  die,  because  his 
father's  a  mayor,  and  the  marriage  might  make  a 
row  in  the  government." 

"Get  out,  my  good  woman,"  said  Cerizet,  "what 
devilish fol-de-rol  are  you  giving  me?  the  father's  a 
mire — mother — " 


344  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Well,  why  not !  mayor  of  his  arrondissement  and 
that's  the  eleventh — Monsieur  Minard,  a  retired 
cocoa-dealer,  and  rich  as  rich." 

"Ah!  very  good!  very  good!  I  know  him.  And 
you  say  Olympe  is  with  his  son?" 

"That  is,  they  don't  live  together,  to  stop  tongues 
from  wagging,  though  he  only  sees  her  on  the 
square;  he  lives  with  his  father,  and  meantime 
they've  bought  their  stuff  and  put  it  and  my  child 
in  lodgings  over  Chaussee-d'Antin  way:  a  stylish 
neighborhood,  eh!" 

"Why  that  seems  to  me  a  very  good  arrange- 
ment," said  Cerizet;  "and  then,  you  see,  heaven 
didn't  intend  us  for  each  other — " 

"Yes,  that's  so ;  I  think  the  child  will  end  by  giving 
me  a  good  deal  of  satisfaction,  and  that  reminds  me 
that  there's  something  I  want  to  consult  you  about " 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Cerizet. 

"Why,  as  my  daughter's  in  luck,  I  can't  go  on 
crying  fish  in  the  streets;  and  then,  considering  that 
my  uncle's  disinherited  me,  it  seems  to  me  I  have  a 
right  to  an  elementary  pension." 

"You're  dreaming,  my  poor  woman!  your  daugh- 
ter's a  minor,  and  you're  bound  to  support  her,  she 
isn't  bound  to  supply  you  with  food." 

"In  that  case,"  said  Madame  Cardinal,  growing 
warm,  "those  who  haven't  anything  must  give  to 
those  who  have!  That's  just  like  the  law — it's  as 
amiable  as  the  guardian  who  talks  about  sending  for 
the  police  for  nothing.  Well !  let  him  send  for  the 
police!  let  him  have  my  head  cut  off!  That  won't 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  345 

prevent  my  saying  that  the  rich  people  are  all 
thieves,  and  the  people  must  get  up  a  revolution  to 
get  their  rights,  what  you,  my  boy,  and  my  daugh- 
ter and  that  lawyer  Minard  and  the  little  guardian 
kick  to  one  side — d'ye  hear?" 
-  Seeing  that  his  ex-mother-in-law-to-be  had 
reached  an  alarming  stage  of  excitement,  Cerizet 
lost  no  time  in  taking  to  his  heels,  and  when  he  was 
more  than  fifty  feet  away,  he  heard  her  still  hurling 
epithets  at  him,  which  he  promised  himself  to  make 
her  pay  for  in  full  the  first  time  she  came  to  the 
bank  on  Rue  des  Poules  to  ask  for  accommodation. 

As  he  approached  his  house,  Cerizet,  who  was 
nothing  less  than  courageous,  felt  a  thrill  of  terror 
as  he  spied  a  figure  standing  in  the  shadow  near  his 
door,  which,  as  he  drew  near,  moved  toward  him. 

Happily  it  was  only  Dutocq.  He  had  come  for 
his  notes.  Cerizet  turned  them  over  to  him  with  a 
very  bad  grace,  complaining  of  the  suspicion  im- 
plied by  a  visit  at  so  unseasonable  an  hour. 

Dutocq  paid  little  heed  to  his  sensitiveness,  but 
presented  himself  at  La  Peyrade's  bright  and  early 
in  the  morning. 

La  Peyrade  paid  the  notes  to  the  last  sou,  and 
replied  with  marked  coldness  to  some  sentimental 
remarks  which  Dutocq  allowed  himself  to  indulge  in 
when  he  had  the  money  safely  in  his  pocket. 

Everything  in  the  advocate's  exterior  suggested 
the  slave  who  has  broken  his  chains  and  does  not 
contemplate  making  a  very  Christianlike  use  of  his 
liberty. 


As  he  was  bowing  his  creditor  out,  the  latter 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  a  woman  in  the 
dress  of  a  servant,  who  was  apparently  on  the  point 
of  pulling  La  Peyrade's  bell. 

This  woman  seemed  to  be  an  acquaintance  of 
Dutocq,  for  he  said  to  her : 

"Aha!  little  mother,  we  have  felt  the  need  of 
consulting  a  lawyer;  you  are  right;  at  the  family 
council  some  very  serious  charges  were  made,  in 
respect  to  you." 

"1  am  not  afraid  of  anybody,  thank  God!  and  I 
can  hold  my  head  up  anywhere,"  retorted  the  per- 
son thus  addressed. 

"So  much  the  better !"  said  the  magistrate's  clerk, 
"so  much  the  better !  but  you  will  probably  be  sum- 
moned soon  before  the  magistrate  who  has  the  case 
to  investigate.  However,  you're  in  good  hands, 
and  my  friend  La  Peyradewill  advise  you  wisely. " 

"Monsieur  is  mistaken,"  replied  the  servant;  "I 
haven't  come  to  consult  the  advocate  on  the  subject 
he  imagines." 

"Nevertheless,  keep  your  eyes  open,  my  dear 
woman,  for  1  tell  you  now  that  you'll  be  hauled  over 
the  coals  in  fine  shape.  The  relations  are  in  a 
furious  rage  with  you,  and  no  one  can  make  them 
believe  that  you're  not  very  rich." 

(347) 


348  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

As  he  spoke  Dutocq  had  his  eye  upon  Theodose, 
who  shrank  from  his  gaze  and  invited  his  client  to 
enter. 

This  is  what  had  taken  place  between  La  Peyrade 
and  this  woman  on  the  preceding  day. 

La  Peyrade,  as  the  reader  will  remember,  was  in 
the  habit  of  attending  early  morning  mass  at  the 
church  of  his  parish.  For  some  time  he  had  found 
that  he  was  the  object  of  a  peculiarly  intent  scru- 
tiny, which  he  was  sadly  at  a  loss  to  explain,  on 
the  part  of  the  woman  whom  we  have  just  seen 
enter  his  office,  and  who,  to  speak  as  Dorine  spoke 
of  Tartuffe,  was  always  careful  to  be  on  hand  at  his 
precise  hour. 

Was  it  an  affair  of  the  heart?  That  explanation 
was  not  compatible  with  the  advanced  age  and 
saintly  air  of  the  devotee,  who  affected,  like  a  nun, 
to  conceal  her  hair  beneath  the  scanty  cap,  called 
the  Jansenist,  by  which  a  few  fervent  remnants  of 
that  sect  in  the  Quartier  Saint-Jacques  can  still  be 
recognized;  on  the  other  hand  her  clothes,  which 
were  scrupulously  neat  and  almost  rich,  and  a  golden 
cross  hanging  at  her  neck  by  a  black  velvet  ribbon, 
excluded  the  idea  of  timid  and  shrinking  mendicity, 
which  might  have  taken  all  this  time  to  find  courage 
to  declare  itself. 

In  the  morning  of  the  day  when  the  dinner  at  the 
Rocker  de  Cancale  was  to  take  place,  tired  of  a  pro- 
ceeding which  had  finally  become  a  source  of  seri- 
ous preoccupation,  and  noticing,  moreover,  that  his 
enigma  in  a  round  cap  was  preparing  to  accost  him. 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  349 

La  Peyrade  went  up  to  her  and  asked  if  she  had  any 
request  to  make  of  him. 

"Monsieur,"  was  the  reply  with  an  accent  of 
profound  mystery,  "is  the  renowned  Monsieur  de  la 
Peyrade,  the  poor  man's  advocate?" 

"I  am  La  Peyrade,  and  I  have  had  occasion  to 
render  some  services  to  the  poor  people  of  the  quar- 
ter." 

Thus  spoke  the  uncertain  modesty  of  the  Pro- 
vencal, who,  at  that  moment,  did  not  exhibit  the 
most  salient  peculiarity  of  his  countrymen. 

"Might  I  then  hope  that  monsieur  in  his  generos- 
ity would  listen  to  me  in  consultation?" 

"The  place,"  replied  La  Peyrade,  "is  not  well 
adapted  to  a  conference.  What  you  have  to  say  to 
me  is  evidently  of  consequence,  for  you  have  been 
trying  to  make  up  your  mind  to  speak  to  me  for  a 
long  time;  I  live  near  by  Rue  Saint-Dominique- 
d'Enfer,  and  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  come  to 
my  office — " 

"That  will  not  incommode  monsieur?" 

"Not  the  least  in  the  world;  it's  my  profession  to 
listen  to  clients." 

"At  what  hour,  please,  that  I  may  not  disturb 
monsieur?" 

"Whenever  you  choose;  I  shall  be  at  home  all 
the  morning." 

"Then  I  will  wait  and  hear  another  mass  at  which 
I  will  receive  the  communion;  I  should  not  have 
dared  to  do  so  at  this  one,  the  thought  of  monsieur 
would  have  taken  my  mind  too  much  from  my 


350  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

devotions.  When  I  have  concluded  them,  I  will  call 
upon  monsieur  about  eight  o'clock,  if  that  will  not 
inconvenience  him." 

"Why  no,  and  there's  no  need  of  so  much  cere- 
mony," said  La  Peyrade  with  a  touch  of  impa- 
tience. 

There  may  have  been  a  suspicion  of  professional 
jealousy  in  that  little  testy  movement,  for  he  evi- 
dently had  to  do  with  a  combatant  who  was  able  to 
give  him  points  in  humility. 

At  the  appointed  hour,  not  a  moment  before  or 
after,  the  devotee  rang  at  the  advocate's  door,  and 
after  inducing  her  with  some  difficulty  to  take  a 
seat,  he  invited  her  to  begin. 

She  thereupon  had  an  attack  of  that  little  dilatory 
cough  to  which  some  people  resort  to  obtain  a  breath- 
ing-space when  they  are  face  to  face  with  a  difficult 
subject  At  last,  however,  she  decided  to  enter  upon 
the  object  of  her  visit. 

"I  hoped,"  said  she,  "that  monsieur  would  deign 
to  tell  me  if  it  is  true  that  a  very  charitable  man, 
lately  deceased,  has  left  a  fund  to  reward  servants 
who  serve  their  masters  faithfully?" 

"It  is  the  fact,"  replied  La  Peyrade,  "that  Mon- 
sieur de  Montyon  established  certain  prizes  for  vir- 
tuous conduct,  which  are  often  awarded  to  zealous 
and  exemplary  servants ;  but  good  conduct  alone  is 
not  sufficient;  to  be  entitled  to  one  of  these  prizes, 
one  must  have  shown  the  most  praiseworthy  devo- 
tion and  Christian  self-abnegation." 

"Religion,"  said  the  devotee,  "enjoins  humility 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  351 

upon  us,  and  I  certainly  should  not  presume  to  sound 
my  own  praises,  but  as  I  have  been  for  more  than 
twenty  years  in  the  service  of  an  old  man,  dull  be- 
yond words,  a  scientific  man  who  has  eaten  up  all  his 
property  in  inventions,  so  that  I  am  obliged  to  sup- 
port him,  some  people  have  thought  that  perhaps  I 
might  not  be  held  wholly  undeserving  of  the  prize." 

"The  Academy  often  selected  its  candidates  from 
persons  in  your  condition,  I  think,"  said  La  Pey- 
rade.  "What  is  your  master's  name?" 

"Pere  Picot;  he's  not  known  by  any  other  name 
in  the  quarter,  where  he  often  goes  out  dressed  as 
if  it  were  carnival  time,  so  that  the  children  crowd 
around  him  and  all  begin  to  shout:  'Good-day, 
Pere  Picot,  good-day,  Pere  Picot!'  But  you  see  he 
doesn't  care  what  people  think  of  him ;  he  goes  along 
engrossed  by  his  own  thoughts,  and  1  find  it's  no 
use  to  spoil  my  temper  cooking  up  some  appetizing 
little  thing  for  him  to  eat,  for  if  you  should  ask  him 
what  he  had  for  dinner  he  couldn't  tell  you ;  and 
yet  he's  a  man  full  of  expedients,  and  he  has  turned 
out  some  promising  pupils;  perhaps  monsieur  knows 
young  Monsieur  Phellion,  professor  at  Saint-Louis 
College,  who  comes  to  our  house  very  often." 

"So  your  master's  a  mathematician?"  said  La 
Peyrade. 

"Yes,  monsieur,  mathematics  is  what  brought 
him  to  grief;  he  lost  his  way  in  a  mass  of  ideas, 
which  apparently  have  no  sense  at  all,  after  destroy- 
ing his  sight  at  the  Observatory,  near  by,  where  he 
was  employed  for  years." 


352  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"Well,"  said  La  Peyrade,  "you  will  need  to  have 
affidavits  attesting  your  long-continued  devotion  to 
this  old  man;  then  I  will  draw  up  a  memorial  to  the 
Academy  and  do  what  I  can." 

"How  kind  monsieur  is!"  exclaimed  the  devotee 
clasping  her  hands,  "and  if  he  would  permit  me  to 
mention  a  little  difficulty — " 

"What  is  it?" 

"I  have  been  told,  monsieur,  that  in  order  to 
obtain  the  prizes  one  must  be  actually  in  want" 

"Not  exactly  that;  and  yet  the  Academy  undoubt- 
edly means  to  select  persons  who  are  not  in  easy 
circumstances,  and  who  have  had  occasion  to  make 
sacrifices  they  could  not  really  afford." 

It  seems  to  me  I  can  claim  to  have  made  sacrifices, 
when  a  little  property  that  I  inherited  has  all  been 
used  up  in  running  the  house,  and  for  fifteen  years 
1  haven't  had  one  sou  in  wages;  monsieur  will 
agree  that  at  three  hundred  francs  a  year  with  com- 
pound interest  they'd  amount  to  a  pretty  little 
sum." 

At  the  suggestion  of  compound  interest,  which 
seemed  to  denote  some  financial  knowledge,  La  Pey- 
rade observed  this  Antigone  with  more  attention. 

"But  this  difficulty  that  you  spoke  of  ? — "  he  said. 

"Monsieur  will  not  think  it  a  misfortune,  I 
fancy,"  replied  the  saintly  creature,  "that  a  very 
rich  uncle,  who  lately  died  in  England,  and  who  had 
never  done  anything  for  his  family  in  his  lifetime, 
should  have  left  me  twenty-five  thousand  francs  in 
his  will." 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  353 

"Surely,"  said  the  advocate,  "there's  nothing 
that  isn't  perfectly  natural  arid  quite  legitimate  about 
that" 

"And  yet,  monsieur,  1  have  said  to  myself  that 
that  might  prejudice  my  case  before  the  judges." 

"It's  possible,  because,  being  now  in  possession 
of  a  small  competence,  the  sacrifices  which  you 
doubtless  will  continue  to  make  for  your  master  will 
seem  something  less  meritorious." 

"Certainly  I  shall  never  abandon  him,  poor  dear 
man,  in  spite  of  all  his  faults,  although  the  poor 
little  hoard  that  has  just  come  to  me  should  be 
endangered." 

"How  so?"  queried  La  Peyrade  with  interest 

"Ah!  monsieur,  just  let  him  once  find  out  that 
I've  a  little  money,  and  it  will  be  only  a  mouthful, 
it  will  all  go  into  the  perpetual  motion  contrivances 
and  the  other  machines  in  which  he's  already  ruined 
himself  and  me  too." 

"Then,  "said  La  Peyrade,"you  would  like  to  have 
this  legacy  that  has  fallen  to  you  kept  a  secret 
from  the  Academy  as  well  as  from  your  master?" 

"How  clever  monsieur  is,  and  how  quickly  he 
understands  things!"  said  the  devotee  with  a 
smile. 

"And,  again,"  continued  the  advocate,  "you  don't 
want  to  keep  the  money  by  you?" 

"So  that  my  master   can  find   it  and  take   it! 
Besides,  monsieur  will  understand,   I  shouldn't  be 
sorry  to  have  the  money  earning  interest,  so  that  I 
could  buy  the  good  man  a  few  little  comforts." 
23 


354  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

"And  the  largest  possible  interest?"  said  the 
advocate. 

"Oh!  monsieur,  five  or  six  per  cent" 

"Then  I  understand  that  you  have  been  so  long 
desirous  of  consulting  me  on  two  matters,  a  memo- 
rial to  help  you  obtain  a  prize  for  virtue,  and  an 
investment?" 

"Monsieur  is  so  kind  and  charitable  and  encour- 
aging!" 

"The  memorial,  after  some  little  inquiry,  will  be 
an  easy  matter ;  but  it's  much  more  difficult  to  sug- 
gest an  investment  that  will  be  perfectly  safe,  and 
of  which  the  secret  will  be  religiously  kept" 

"Ah!  if  I  only  dared!"  said  the  devotee. 

"Dared  do  what?"  asked  La  Peyrade. 

"Monsieur  understands  me — " 

"I?  not  in  the  least  in  the  world." 

"And  yet  I  prayed  just  now  that  monsieur  might 
be  led  to  consent  to  take  the  money  for  me ;  I  should 
have  entire  confidence  that  he  would  return  it  to  me 
and  would  not  mention  it" 

At  that  moment  La  Peyrade  was  reaping  the  fruit 
of  his  comedy  of  devotion  to  the  necessitous  classes. 
The  chorus  of  the  concierges  of  the  quarter  lauding 
him  to  the  skies  was  the  only  thing  that  could  have 
inspired  this  servant  with  the  unlimited  confidence 
she  manifested  in  him.  He  immediately  thought  of 
Dutocq,  and  was  not  far  from  believing  that  this 
woman  was  sent  to  him  by  Providence.  But  the 
more  desirous  he  felt  of  availing  himself  of  the 
opportunity  to  assert  his  independence,  the  more 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  355 

essential  it  appeared  to  him  that  he  should  seem  to 
yield  to  importunity,  and  his  objections  were  with- 
out end. 

In  truth  he  had  no  great  faith  in  his  client's  char- 
acter, and  did  not  care,  as  the  saying  goes,  to  rob 
Peter  to  pay  Paul,  to  substitute  for  a  creditor  who 
was,  after  all,  his  accomplice,  a  woman  who  might 
at  any  moment  become  troublesome,  harass  him 
with  demands  for  payment  and  subject  him  to  scan- 
dalous scenes  which  would  injure  his  reputation 
incalculably.  He  decided,  therefore,  to  play  to  win 
or  lose  the  whole. 

"My  dear  woman,"  said  he  to  the  devotee,  "I  am 
in  no  need  of  money,  nor  am  I  rich  enough  to  pay 
you  interest  on  twenty-five  thousand  francs  without 
putting  it  to  some  use.  All  I  can  do  is  to  deposit  it 
in  my  name  with  Dupuis,  the  notary;  he  is  a  devout 
man,  and  you  can  see  him  Sundays  sitting  in  the 
churchwardens'  pew  at  your  parish  church.  Nota- 
ries, you  know,  give  no  receipt,  nor  will  I  give  you 
any, — I  simply  promise  to  leave  among  my  papers, 
if  I  die,  a  memorandum  which  will  assure  the  resti- 
tution of  the  sum  to  you.  It's  a  matter  of  blind 
confidence,  you  see,  and  I  do  it  against  my  inclina- 
tion, and  solely  to  oblige  a  person  whose  pious  sen- 
timents and  the  charitable  use  she  intends  to  make 
of  her  little  fortune,  commend  her  in  an  especial 
way  to  my  good  will." 

"If  monsieur  thinks  that  the  matter  can  not  be 
arranged  in  any  other  way — " 

"It  seems  to  me  to  be  the  only  possible  way," 


356  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

said  La  Peyrade.  "However,  I  don't  despair  of 
getting  six  per  cent  interest  for  you,  and  you  can 
rely  upon  its  being  paid  to  you  with  the  utmost 
promptitude.  But  six  months  or  a  year  may  elapse 
before  the  notary  is  in  condition  to  repay  the  prin- 
cipal, because  the  funds  which  notaries  invest  in 
mortgages  as  a  general  rule  must  be  loaned  for  a 
fixed  time,  long  or  short  as  the  case  may  be.  Now, 
when  you  have  the  prize  for  virtue,  which  in  all 
probability  I  shall  be  able  to  obtain  for  you,  as  you 
will  no  longer  have  any  reason  for  concealing  your 
little  hoard, — although  you  have  a  reason  to-day  that 
I  can  readily  understand— I  must  warn  you  that  in 
case  of  any  indiscretion  on  your  part  your  money 
will  be  immediately  returned  to  you,  and  I  shall 
make  no  bones  of  telling  everyone  how  you  tried  to 
conceal  your  inheritance  from  that  master  to  whom 
you  were  supposed  to  have  devoted  yourself  in  the 
most  self-sacrificing  way.  That,  you  must  see, 
would  place  you  in  the  position  of  a  fraud,  and 
would  greatly  impair  your  reputation  for  sanctity." 

"Oh!"  said  the  devotee,  "can  it  be  that  monsieur 
believes  me  to  be  the  kind  of  a  woman  to  say  what 
I  ought  not?" 

"Good  heavens!  my  good  woman,  in  business  we 
must  provide  for  all  contingencies;  money  sets  the 
best  friends  at  variance  and  leads  one  on  to  do  the 
things  he  was  least  likely  to  have  anticipated.  So 
think  the  matter  over,  and  come  to  see  me  again  in 
a  few  days ;  it's  very  possible  that,  meanwhile  you 
will  have  thought  of  some  better  scheme,  and  1 


THE   PETTY  BOURGEOIS  357 

myself,  who  have  rashly  offered  to  do  something  that 
is  really  distasteful  to  me,  may  have  then  discov- 
ered difficulties  in  our  arrangement  which  I  do  not 
now  see." 

This  menace,  adroitly  brought  in  at  the  close,  was 
calculated  to  bring  matters  to  a  head  at  once. 

"I  have  reflected,"  said  the  devotee;  "with  so 
devout  a  man  as  monsieur,  one  can  run  no  risk." 

Producing  a  little  purse  from  beneath  her  wimple 
she  took  from  it  twenty-five  bank  notes.  The  rap- 
idity with  which  she  counted  them  was  a  revelation 
to  La  Peyrade.  The  woman  was  evidently  accus- 
tomed to  handling  money  and  a  strange  thought 
passed  through  his  mind. — 

"Suppose  she's  making  me  a  receiver  of  stolen 
property?"  he  thought — "No,"  he  said  aloud,  "to 
draw  up  the  memorial  which  I  am  to  present  to  the 
Academy,  I  shall  need,  as  I  told  you,  to  make  some 
few  inquiries,  and  by-and-by  1  shall  have  occasion 
naturally  enough  to  call  on  you.  At  what  hour  shall 
you  be  alone?" 

"About  four  o'clock  monsieur  goes  out  to  walk  at 
the  Luxembourg." 

"Where  do  you  live?" 

"Number  9  Rue  du  Val-de-Grace. " 

"Very  well,  at  four  o'clock;  and  if,  as  I  doubt 
not,  my  information  is  favorable,  I  will  take  your 
money.  Otherwise,  if  we  are  not  likely  to  carry 
out  the  idea  of  obtaining  the  prize,  you  will  have 
no  reason  for  making  a  mystery  of  your  inherit- 
ance; you  could  then  invest  your  money  under 


358  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

more  normal  conditions  than  those  I  am  obliged  to 
propose  to  you." 

"Oh!  monsieur  is  very  prudent,"  said  the  devo- 
tee, who  had  thought  the  affair  concluded — "Thank 
God !  I  didn't  steal  the  money,  and  monsieur  can 
find  out  all  about  me  in  the  quarter." 

"That  is  just  what  it's  indispensable  that  I  should 
do,"  said  La  Peyrade  dryly,  for  he  did  not  like  this 
keen  intelligence  which  divined  all  his  thoughts, 
hidden  beneath  a  cloak  of  simplicity;  "the  prizes 
for  virtue  are  not  awarded  on  any  one's  word,  and 
without  being  a  thief  you  may  not  be  exactly  a  Sis- 
ter of  Charity ;  there's  a  wide  range  between  those 
two  extremes. " 

"As  monsieur  pleases,"  said  the  devotee,  "and 
he  does  me  too  great  a  service  for  me  to  object  to 
his  taking  all  possible  precautions." 

With  that  she  bestowed  a  most  unctuous  salute 
upon  him  and  went  out,  taking  her  money  with  her. 

"The  devil!"  mused  La  Peyrade,  "the  woman  is 
stronger  than  I  am;  she  swallows  snakes  with  an 
expression  of  gratitude  and  without  a  suspicion  of  a 
wry  face.  I  haven't  yet  achieved  such  a  mastery 
over  my  emotions." 

He  was  afraid  he  had  been  too  timorous,  and  that 
his  prospective  creditor  might  have  changed  her 
mind  in  the  time  intervening  before  his  promised 
call  upon  her. 

But  the  harm  was  done,  and  although  he  was 
worried  by  the  thought  that  he  had  perhaps  let  an 
opportunity  slip  through  his  fingers,  he  would  have 


THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS  359 

let  his  leg  be  cut  off  rather  than  yield  to  the  impulse 
to  anticipate,  even  by  a  single  minute,  the  hour 
appointed  for  his  visit 

The  information  he  gathered  in  the  quarter  was 
quite  contradictory;  some  people  called  his  client  a 
saint,  others  declared  that  she  was  a  sly  creature ; 
but  he  learned  nothing  so  prejudicial  to  her  moral 
character  as  to  induce  him  to  draw  back  his  hand 
from  the  good  fortune  she  offered  him. 

When  he  saw  her  again  at  four  o'clock  he  found 
her  in  the  same  mind. 

With  the  cash  in  his  pocket  he  betook  himself  to 
the  Rocker  de  Cancale,  and  the  unintentional  aggres- 
siveness with  which  he  managed  his  rupture  with 
his  two  partners  should  perhaps  be  attributed  to 
the  various  emotions  through  which  he  had  passed 
during  that  day.  His  ill-judged  asperity  on  that 
occasion  was  consistent  neither  with  his  natural  nor 
his  acquired  disposition ;  but  the  money  that  was 
burning  his  pocket  had  intoxicated  him  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  the  mere  touch  of  it  stirred  him  to  such 
a  pitch  of  excitement  and  impatience  of  restraint, 
that  he  could  not  readily  control  himself.  He  had 
thrown  Cerizet  over  without  so  much  as  consulting 
Brigitte,  and  yet  he  had  not  altogether  had  the  cour- 
age of  his  duplicity,  for  he  had  charged  to  the  old 
maid's  account  a  decision  which  emanated  entirely 
from  his  own  will  and  from  the  bitter  memory  of  his 
struggles  with  the  man  who  had  long  dominated  him. 

In  fact  La  Peyrade  throughout  the  day  had  failed 
to  show  himself  the  infallible  man,  armed  at  all 


360  THE  PETTY  BOURGEOIS 

points,  whom  we  have  seen  hitherto;  once  before, 
when  he  carried  Cerizet  the  fifteen  thousand  francs 
handed  him  by  Thuillier,  he  had  been  drawn  into 
an  insurrectionary  movement  against  the  usurer 
which  had  necessitated  the  decisive  stroke  of  the 
Sauvaignou  affair.  The  fact  is  that  it  is  perhaps 
more  difficult  to  be  strong  in  good  than  in  evil  for- 
tune. 

The  Farnese  Hercules,  calm  and  reposeful, 
expresses  more  emphatically  the  plenitude  of  mus- 
cular power  than  all  the  other  Hercules,  excited  and 
violent  and  represented  struggling  with  strained 
muscles  at  their  superhuman  tasks. 


LIST  OF    ETCHINGS 


VOLUME  X 

PACK 

TULLIA  AND  M.  THUILLIER Fronts. 

BEAU  THUILLIER 24 

M.  COLLEVILLE  AND  FLAVIE 96 

CERIZET'S  OFFICE Ig2 

CERIZET  AND  LA  CARDINAL 304 


10  N.  R.,  P.  B.  36l 


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